The throw in is surely the most flouted legislation in the game. Every weekend the Premier League sees international footballers delivering netball-esque put-ins from the sidelines. Should we review the throw in’s and crack down on the flaunting of the rule? Or am I, once again, just adding more material for a potential ‘Saddo’s View’ feature.
Following on from HITC’s very own Nick Harris’s ‘Monday Moan’ on the inability of Premier League footballers to be able to stand ten yards away at a free-kick it immediately lead me to believe the floodgates have been opened and everyone’s little bugbears could now be shared with the footballing community.
However I am already a confirmed ‘saddo’ perhaps, as I was incredulous to the fact Clint Dempsey wore the number ‘2’ on his back. For whatever reason; first shirt number, rapper nickname or reminder of quantity of feet he has it is still plain wrong in my eyes.
But that isn’t my biggest bugbear, that trophy belongs to the ‘foul-throw’ rule.
‘‘Oh come on lads these are the basics’’
A commonly shouted phrase at any recreational facility up and down the length and breadth of the UK as a forlorn looking child whimpers in the cold rain, caught out by lifting up his back foot trying to emulate Rory Delap; this happens every weekend.
Yet you cannot really blame the kids for trying it, I mean they say the players need to set an example but when it comes to throw-ins the example is appalling.
I am calling players out as well; Glen Johnson, Patrice Evra, Alexander Kolarov, Gael Clichy, Branislav Ivanonvic you know what you are. It is usually in the form of the limp wristed drop to a team-mate just centre-metres away. That ball never came from behind the back of the head; it is a simple thing to do so why can’t the best in the world do it?
The worst I have ever seen happened in the build-up to Anderson’s sublime finish against Newcastle as Wayne Rooney did some sort of half netball pass to the feet of Darren Fletcher.
The throw-in has become a weapon in the modern game, and while I have tried in vain to discover a fault in Rory Delap’s throw-in technique others have done tremendous things with the throw in. Steve Watson’s forward roll foreplay is a personal favourite but Pierre Wome, the former Cameroon international, used to arch his back right down, as if spring loaded before almost mechanically propelling the ball into the outer reaches of the atmosphere like some sort of muscular trebuchet.
Yet the short, little, dainty ones are the ones that, to quote Peter Griffin ‘really grind my gears’.
While doing some research for this article I discovered I wasn’t alone and one theory was to scrap the throw altogether and that a 3-yard-pass, similar to what you see in Futsal and 5-a-side, could be a better way of getting the ball back into play.
Or would we miss the long throw? We know Stoke City would.
What do you think? Time to crack down on the ‘foul throw epidemic’ sweeping the Premier League?
image: © wonkerq
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
