Alan Stubbs was feeling sorry for himself today after his boyhood heroes, the team he’s now captain of, failed to beat 10-man injury-hit Liverpool in the derby at Anfield yesterday.
Stubbs was the victim of a silly tackle from Milan Baros shortly before the end of the game. Baros, who’d missed numerous chances for the second game in succession, was not in the best frame of mind as he went to get the ball in what was probably not quite a 50-50 situation. As usual in matches involving Liverpool, a tackle that certainly wasn’t good, and probably was deserving of a red-card, is treated as a serious, malicious dirty tackle – an over-reaction.
Alan Stubbs’ opinion was different: "It was a sh**bag’s challenge," he said.
Stubbs said: "You don’t do those types of tackles, they can finish players’ careers. It was a shocking tackle and I don’t care what people say about typical strikers’ challenges – that is a load of nonsense. It was a tackle that could finish a career whether it was mine or anybody else and it is just not acceptable."
His griping continued: "I would have accepted it if he had looked the other way and left his leg there but when you look at a player and still push your leg into his leg then it is totally different. I would have been the first to shake his hand if he had turned away and left his foot dangling but it wasn’t the case."
Stubbs is now probably all the more grateful his playing career wasn’t brought to an early end – after all, his punditry career hopes have probably now been dashed with his description of the challenge.
In many ways although Baros did make a tackle that could well have been brought on by frustration at his missed chances, his frustration wouldn’t have been helped by all the fouls he suffered prior to that, which the referee failed to punish.