By Chris Kirwan
April 8 2003

Thomas Gravesen has hit back at claims that he went out to deliberately hurt Olivier Bernard in Sunday’s victory over Newcastle United.

Talking to Danish paper ‘Ekstra Bladet’ he stated:

“I never go into a tackle to injure a player. I felt that it was a 50-50 situation with both of us eager to get the ball.”

His response comes after Alan Shearer’s claim that it was a “coward’s tackle”. This may have caused Neil Lennon to raise an eyebrow; I’ll leave you to decide which is more cowardly, Gravesen’s tackle or kicking somebody in the face when they are on the floor.

It was an extremely bad tackle, and Gravesen deserved to be sent off for it, but I don’t believe that he deliberately tried to injure Bernard. Gravesen has always had a clumsy streak to his game; in David Moyes’ first game in charge Gravesen was sent off for two bookings, and Walter Smith frequently substituted Gravesen for fear of him picking up another booking. He seems to approach tackles in the same manner no matter whether he has already been cautioned.

This saga is undoubtedly going to run and run, because Newcastle would have us believe they would have romped to the Premiership title had Gravesen been spotted. It’s just nice for the Blues to be on the right end of a ‘swings and roundabouts’ scenario, whereby the bad decisions of the season are beginning to ‘even themselves out’. It was harsh on Newcastle, but as Sir Bobby Robson said in a far more considered interview than Shearer, “some days you get them, some days you don’t”.