Craig Fagan has a fractured tibia after that horrendous hacking he took from Danny Guthrie in the last throes of Hull City's victory at poor ickle Newcastle on Saturday.
I hope you saw it on Match Of The Day. The pundits all said it was "stupid" which while true, didn't go far enough. It was vicious, wanton, savage, needless, brutal, childish. One player, angry and sobbing because his side are being squarely and soundly beaten, takes it out on a fellow professional who is doing his stoic duty in shielding the ball.
Guthrie, of course, had two goes at Fagan's legs. The first made contact but Fagan, like a man, stayed on his feet and managed to keep both his temper and his possession of the ball. So Guthrie, unabashed by this meagre act of class, had another go. Fagan went down, hurt and furious, but got back up again as players flew in to start/stop the scrapping.
Now while Guthrie got red, he deserves more than the tepid indignity of an early bath and a three match ban. All the paper and web talk has been about two less brutal acts of foul play which warranted red cards, but as they involved John Terry and Nemanja Vidic, they are automatically seen as important - indeed, the bare-faced temerity of a referee to send off the England captain is, naturally, a national scandal. The worse offence of the weekend committed by a red carded player was that of Guthrie, who has escaped major media censure because of a) the other dismissals; and b) the club he plays for. After all, it wouldn't do to be critical of Newcastle in any way would it, to kick out (you might say) at an organisation that's already down. Guthrie chose, by way of contrast, to kick out again and again until the man went down.
Guthrie was after the man, pure and simple. He didn't want the ball, he didn't attempt to get it on either occasion he approached Fagan with his instep ready to strike. Now one of Hull City's form players has been ruled out for three months, and we haven't the kind of strength in depth necessary at this level. Throwing the book at Guthrie, beyond a paltry ban, won't heal Fagan's leg up any quicker, but it may just provide some real justice for a shocking piece of pre-meditated violence - the kind that would get a certain team-mate of Guthrie's locked up.
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