Sport
Premier League concussion debate is now urgent
The Emirates Stadium was hollow and empty, so the noise was amplified. It was awful, haunting and will stick with those who heard it for a very long time. Without supporters, there may have been fewer witnesses to a rather disturbing incident but, as Wolves striker Raul Jimenez and Arsenal defender David Luiz clashed heads on Sunday evening, all the emotions present in their team-mates and club staff were reflected by the millions watching from their homes.
Players collide regularly on a football pitch and it isn’t uncommon to see a clash of heads. But this was something different and that became apparent almost immediately as Jimenez came off much worse. Concern was absolute; the soulless atmosphere within the stadium somehow became colder, more eerie and desperate. Everybody was hoping both players would be okay; it seemed inconceivable that either would be able to continue. Indeed, Wolves’ Mexican hitman was stretchered off and sent straight to hospital for surgery on a fractured skull. Thankfully, news emerged on Monday that he is responding well.
Flashbacks to Petr Cech and Ryan Mason, and how the scars from their on-pitch accidents remain today, are still fresh in everybody’s minds. But the worry and sympathy for Jimenez, so evident as the news and opinion swept across social media, soon turned into anger and dismay. Luiz had been up on his feet moments after the collision, and was deemed okay to continue having received momentary treatment in the form of a bandage wrapped around his head. Blood could be seen through it; the risk was obvious and yet appeared to be ignored.
After so much talk around concussion protocols and head injuries generally in football because of incidents like Cech’s, Mason’s and the time Andre Villas-Boas didn’t bring Hugo Lloris off the pitch at Everton while in charge of Tottenham Hotspur in 2013, that seemed irresponsible. The Arsenal doctors did their job; nobody has suggested they didn’t follow the guidance in place but what has been scrutinised is whether enough is being done by the authorities and the clubs themselves.
Since football restarted after lockdown back in June, with five substitutes allocated to each team, a debate has raged. It was accepted as necessity at the time because of the mounting fixture list and finite period in which to play the games after such a lengthy break that, for the most part, robbed managers of time on the training pitch. After a break of just over a month in late summer, it was decided that the three sub rule would be reinstated for this season. Arguments have intensified, creating a divide between the bigger and smaller clubs, which has been a rather common theme in a number of ways throughout this calendar year.
Nobody has quite summed up the top vs bottom to and fro quite like Chris Wilder and Jurgen Klopp. The ‘feud’ between the Sheffield United and Liverpool managers has been rather sensationalised in parts of the media. On Wilder’s part, at least, it initially seemed lighthearted. His claim is that Klopp, who has been joined by Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola in his campaign to reinstate five substitutions on safety grounds, is solely focussed on gaining an advantage for Liverpool. Klopp has also been very compelling in post-match interviews, lobbying accusations at television companies for their choices of kick off times. His critics suggest he is only wanting to negate the possibility of losing games.
There could be merit in his argument, and Wilder’s that Klopp is being slightly disingenuous for that matter. Yet, it feels short-sighted at best to be having a football debate around rules which may or may not have player welfare at their heart when something like concussion has been misunderstood to such a degree and left in such stark contempt.
Five substitutes may have helped the Luiz/Jimenez situation and perhaps Mikel Arteta would have felt he could afford to play things a little safer. But concussion needs a more specific failsafe in place should such an incident recur in a future football match. A ‘concussion substitution’ has been suggested and would make a lot of sense; a temporary change could be made, affording the opportunity for a possible case to be checked over with more stringent measures.
While Luiz continuing was unnerving anyway, given the state of his wound, most alarming was how quick the turnaround was; it was as if the match was more important than his health. Not on the part of those who checked him over but on those who devised the way he was examined. Troy Deeney’s assertion that a player should be allowed to make their own minds up has fuelled a very dangerous fire, too.
With dementia and the aftereffects of football being discussed so prominently right now after a number of tragic cases, centred around England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team, it should bring the concussion issue even more sharply into focus. The sight of Jimenez laying still on the ground was frightening and it should have served to stop his direct opponent returning to the action. It didn’t, so now bigger and more drastic, measures must be taken.
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