Ryan Mason's head injury | has had to retire

Snow

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Can someone explain to me how this is not a foul? Why is it still okay to hit another player so long as the ball is close to you and it's with your head (or fist if you're a keeper)?

Ball is crossed, two players try to get the ball. One heads it away and the other badly headbutts the other, so badly infact that he had to go off injured.

Are head injuries less serious then gettin a cut on your shin from a stud?

If players can't go hard into a 50/50 challenge on the ground they shouldn't be able to go hard in the air either. We've seen cases where a player has been way later than Cahill today and nothing was done. Especially dangerous for the player, like Mason, who's not moving much but is getting hit by quite some force from someone behind him who's had a run-up.
 

Bepi

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Very low chance something like this happening and luckily no heavy consequences until now. How is Mason, any news?
 

Omar Little

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It's unfortunate, it's not a foul. Two committed players attacking the ball with their heads, one comes off a bit worse than the other. Simple.
 

LouisDanGaal

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Because if we tried to introduce any rule like that the amount of controversial penalties would be increased about 1000 percent.

On a separate point the arsenal penalty today I don't like at all. If koscielny isn't running in its not a penalty and there is no way for mee to know hes there.
 

Carl

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It's unfortunate, it's not a foul. Two committed players attacking the ball with their heads, one comes off a bit worse than the other. Simple.
If it's with feet rather than heads is it a foul? Yes, it is. So why not with heads?

It's the same with goal keepers, they're full on allowed to punch people in the head.

It's a mistimed challenge at the end of the day.
 

RK

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It's obviously a foul. Credit to the ref in that he immediately called the doctors on, but he should've given the free kick after.
 

Fitchett

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It's unfortunate, it's not a foul. Two committed players attacking the ball with their heads, one comes off a bit worse than the other. Simple.
But it is a foul! A competent referee would have awarded a penalty and issued a red card if the ball was on the ground and Cahill's leg ploughed into Mason after he had played the ball. The fact that Cahill has mistimed his challenge and headbutted Mason, causing him to go off injured, is far more dangerous than the ground offence which would have resulted in a red card. So, it should have been a red card for Cahill and a penalty to Hull.
 

Omar Little

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If it's with feet rather than heads is it a foul? Yes, it is. So why not with heads?

It's the same with goal keepers, they're full on allowed to punch people in the head.

It's a mistimed challenge at the end of the day.
So you suggest keepers should be discouraged from coming out to punch the ball and defenders should be discouraged from trying to defend high balls? In both cases they players will be mid-air and have a lot less control than if they were deliberately jumping into a late tackle on the ground. They only way to eradicate the tiny amount of times something like this happens is to outlaw heading and punching.
 

arthurka

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There would be a million penalties and free kicks given every weekend if fouls were given like this.
Please do tell us more?
Is this not a freekick?
Is it Ok to drive full speed and head someone in the back of his head?

For me this is reckless and a red card...
 

duffer

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This was the only incident this weekend. Can't remember any others this year.
Of players coming together in the box, one winning the ball and the other only making contact with the player? Happens a few times each game.

This was the only time it resulted in an injury but you can't possibly be saying a foul should only be given if a player is injured.
 

Snow

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Of players coming together in the box, one winning the ball and the other only making contact with the player? Happens a few times each game.

This was the only time it resulted in an injury but you can't possibly be saying a foul should only be given if a player is injured.
Obviously it's a more serious challenge if it injures a player. Players often brush up against each other but this time Cahill was too late and just clattered Mason with bad consequences. That does not happen all the time.
 

Classical Mechanic

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Of players coming together in the box, one winning the ball and the other only making contact with the player? Happens a few times each game.

This was the only time it resulted in an injury but you can't possibly be saying a foul should only be given if a player is injured.
Cahill was miles away. It was a dumb and dangerous challenge.
 

Carl

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So you suggest keepers should be discouraged from coming out to punch the ball and defenders should be discouraged from trying to defend high balls? In both cases they players will be mid-air and have a lot less control than if they were deliberately jumping into a late tackle on the ground. They only way to eradicate the tiny amount of times something like this happens is to outlaw heading and punching.
That's so silly. Do we have to eradicate tackling? No, you just penalise players who mistime it. Same with headers.

I find it ridiculous that a goalkeeper can mistime a challenge where the result is that they punch someone in the head and it's not even a foul.
 

duffer

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Obviously it's a more serious challenge if it injures a player. Players often brush up against each other but this time Cahill was too late and just clattered Mason with bad consequences. That does not happen all the time.
It's not necessarily a worse foul if someone gets injured. Certainly the result of the foul should have zero impact on the refs decision. I've seen blatant, two-footed, studs-showing fouls where the fouled player is fine seconds later and also fair 50/50s that have resulted in compound fractures.

Cahill made an honest attempt to win the ball and was a fraction of a second slower to the ball than Mason. It happens all the time.
 

Cutch

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But it is a foul! A competent referee would have awarded a penalty and issued a red card if the ball was on the ground and Cahill's leg ploughed into Mason after he had played the ball. The fact that Cahill has mistimed his challenge and headbutted Mason, causing him to go off injured, is far more dangerous than the ground offence which would have resulted in a red card. So, it should have been a red card for Cahill and a penalty to Hull.
That would have actually been very incompetent, as it was the box Hull were defending
 

Classical Mechanic

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So you think he deliberately nutted him?

When the ball has been crossed in like that, how much time do you think it takes for a football to travel 1 foot?
Not deliberately. It is a dumb challenge IMO. The direction of his approach compared to Mason's position makes his chance of winning the ball very slim. It is reckless.
 

DomesticTadpole

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So you think he deliberately nutted him?

When the ball has been crossed in like that, how much time do you think it takes for a football to travel 1 foot?
If Cahill had done it deliberately he was risking having his own nose spread across his face. It was one of those unfortunate things.
 

duffer

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If Cahill had done it deliberately he was risking having his own nose spread across his face. It was one of those unfortunate things.
Indeed. Horrible (especially to a Chelsea fan like Mason!) but it does happen.

I've been punched in the face by goalies missing the ball and nutted by defenders countless times in my football "career". Maybe that explains the declining quality of my posts!
 

Pogue Mahone

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Can someone explain to me how this is not a foul? Why is it still okay to hit another player so long as the ball is close to you and it's with your head (or fist if you're a keeper)?

Ball is crossed, two players try to get the ball. One heads it away and the other badly headbutts the other, so badly infact that he had to go off injured.

Are head injuries less serious then gettin a cut on your shin from a stud?

If players can't go hard into a 50/50 challenge on the ground they shouldn't be able to go hard in the air either. We've seen cases where a player has been way later than Cahill today and nothing was done. Especially dangerous for the player, like Mason, who's not moving much but is getting hit by quite some force from someone behind him who's had a run-up.
I think the logic is that flying in feet first carries almost no risk to the assailant, so it's easy to assume they're either being malicious or - at best - deliberately reckless.

Flying in head first is so dangerous for both people that it's much more likely to be assumed a complete accident by someone who had no idea they would clash heads.
 

Zen

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I opened this thread thinking some kinda of praise would be in place for the time given to check over both or something - not talking on why it wasn't a foul and potential red for Cahill. Almost laughable to think that, theres zilch malicious intent there, and I know some will claim the same for certain fouls etc, but takes Arsenals penalty, a high boot is kind of malicious though debatable, going for a pretty fair header simply isn't.

We can't start removing everything from the game, accidents happen, should Riise have been sent off for breaking Alan Smiths leg because he struck the ball at him so powerful?
 

duffer

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Should Cahill have been allowed to continue? He was down for a good couple of minutes. He didn't seem to show any adverse effects during the remainder of the game but still.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Should Cahill have been allowed to continue? He was down for a good couple of minutes. He didn't seem to show any adverse effects during the remainder of the game but still.
He should have been taken off for a formal assessment re potential concussion. They've got reasonably sophisticated standardised test protocols in rugby. Takes a few minutes and can't be done on the pitch. Football's obviously lagging a bit behind. You can be killed from a second blow to the head after being concussed.
 

pseudo_canadian

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Should Cahill have been allowed to continue? He was down for a good couple of minutes. He didn't seem to show any adverse effects during the remainder of the game but still.
The fact that there isn't any sort of protocol for head injuries/collisions in football is absolutely ridiculous to me.

As someone who has had a serious concussion from playing, the procedures I had to go through just to start training again was extensive. It wasn't until nearly a month later that I was back playing.

Then again, Cahill wasn't on the receiving end in this particular case. Still though, they need to do proper testing to make sure players are OK. You simply cannot mess around with head injuries.
 

Theafonis

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He should have been taken off for a formal assessment re potential concussion. They've got reasonably sophisticated standardised test protocols in rugby. Takes a few minutes and can't be done on the pitch. Football's obviously lagging a bit behind. You can be killed from a second blow to the head after being concussed.
That does seem pretty serious. I thought precedent changed after the 2014 world cup where players would be re-assessed in the locker room before coming back -- or am I thinking of the NFL?
 

Theafonis

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The fact that there isn't any sort of protocol for head injuries/collisions in football is absolutely ridiculous to me.

As someone who has had a serious concussion from playing, the procedures I had to go through just to start training again was extensive. It wasn't until nearly a month later that I was back playing.

Then again, Cahill wasn't on the receiving end in this particular case. Still though, they need to do proper testing to make sure players are OK. You simply cannot mess around with head injuries.
What's also interesting is that there are studies showing that regularly heading a ball can cause head issues/trauma. Can't be too good for the player where he just suffered a head knock and is back to heading balls again 5 min later.