“Neil Taylor”, said Wales supremo Chris Coleman, after his player had committed an X certificate tackle on Seamus Coleman, “is not really that type of player”, without adding the type of player he really wasn’t, or was. We know what he meant, of course. Neil Taylor is not the type of player who launches into reckless tackles that breaks the leg of an opponent, even when he does. Chris Coleman was talking nonsense. It’s his specialist subject.
Only Taylor will know whether the tackle that fractured Seamus Coleman’s tibia and fibula was intentional so I will not comment, other than to say it bloody well looked like it at the time. I am all for a player “going in hard” at the tackle but as soon as Taylor steamed in there was only going to be one outcome.
For once, the TV cameras did not linger on the injured player, nor did they show the horrendous tackle and injury from each and every angle. They didn’t need to because anyone who saw the incident in real time had a fair idea that Coleman, the player, wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. Whilst I am disturbed by the attitude of Coleman, the manager, I am not surprised. He was hardly going to tell the truth. And that’s the most disappointing thing of all.
If anything, the meaningless nonsense that Taylor was “not really that type of player” missed the point, if there was any point to Chris Coleman’s statement. His player had committed an horrendous foul, deserved to be sent off and should now have the disciplinary book thrown at him. The Wales manager could and should have said all that before he came out with the nonsense that he did.
I can only imagine if the boot was on the other foot and one of Chris Coleman’s players had been taken out of the game with his right leg pointing in a variety of different directions. I doubt if he would have described the opponent in such vacuous terms.
