Orient star Spring believes tackling could become a thing of the past
Will football become a non-contact sport?
Orient midfielder Matthew Spring believes that football could soon become a non-contact sport after Charlie Daniels picked up the first red card of his career on Saturday.
The Orient players were livid with referee Oliver Langford, who capped an awful performance by sending Daniels off after trying to play a non-existent advantage and when the full-back slid in to try and win possession back he ended up seeing red.
Orient went down to 10 men and Spring explained: “The referee said the advantage was because we are going forward, but it was a poor advantage to be honest with you and it led to the sending off.
“You don’t want to harp on about the referee, but I don’t think he had a great afternoon.
“A few silly decisions that he gets wrong and it just gets everyone a little bit riled up.”
Spring, who has made over 450 league appearances throughout his career, thought Daniels was unlucky to see red.
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“I think it was a strong tackle, but I think he won the ball,” said Spring.
“Charlie said he won the ball, but I think it’s the interpretation; it’s too strong a tackle.
“It looks like they are trying to cancel out tackles altogether. But you can’t go in there to win the ball and then half way through pull out, because you will get yourself hurt.”
Spring suffered the same fate himself last season, when he was banned for three games for a similar sort of challenge and the former Charlton man has plenty of sympathy for his O’s team-mate.
“Charlie is one of our big players and it’s a big blow, especially when you think it’s not a sending off. It happened to me last season and I had to sit out three games,” he added.
