Arsenal 20 years out in 3 months after ‘worst tackle ever’

In the immediate aftermath of the match, the looming concern was that Biereth could be side-lined for several months with injury following a horrific tackle from St Mirren’s Charles Dunne. .

Unfortunately, these fears have now been confirmed.

Three months passed

A statement on Motherwell’s site SAYS, “Mika Biereth is set to spend up to three months on the sidelines. The Arsenal loanee picked up a knee injury in our Viaplay Cup match against St Mirren on Saturday.

“Scans have revealed a serious knee injury and mean the striker will miss 12 weeks of the season.

“Our loan agreement with Arsenal has not changed due to this injury.”

Dunne’s reaction

Dunne expressed sympathy for Biereth before insisting that he would never injure an opponent. Writing on Twitter, Dunne said, “I’ve never been out to hurt anybody! I just had my eyes for the ball and won the ball but unfortunately I missed — that’s what caught him.

“I contacted him and texted him, apologized and wished him well in his recovery.”

So it’s okay, then.

Instant reaction

“There were two big decisions,” Kettlewell SAYS after the game about the referee.

“I don’t want to sit here as someone who always makes excuses, but there are two decisions in the game today.

“One was a stonewall penalty in the first half, handballed by Mikael Mandron [from Dan Casey’s shot] and I’ve always been a big believer in a player’s reaction – he knows it’s from the hand, that his hand is outstretched, which is all that’s shown in the video.

“But I was more upset with the challenge in the second half from Charles Dunne on Mika Biereth, it was a terrible tackle, a two-footed tackle and straight-footed.

“I already have a striker sitting on the treatment bed there.

“I was taught that these types of tackles are prohibited in the game.

“I didn’t throw Willie away [Collum, the referee] under the bus, he is one of our top officials, and rightly so, but I asked the question about the penalty at half time and he said ‘we don’t have VAR’.

“We wouldn’t have got the red card in the second half if it was a terrible tackle, it was an absolutely shocking, red card all day – but the excuse is they don’t have VAR.

“But I know that when VAR closes, if we don’t have VAR, the referees will referee the game, as we were told it’s just an aid to help the referees get more correct decisions.

“But when you see these things on the pitch, you have to count the cost as a referee.

“I’m counting the cost. I’m really angry at the tackle coming on a striker, which is really, like a young guy we had on loan at Arsenal.

“We talk about protecting these creative players and all the rest of it, but I think that’s just words sometimes, we need to do more to try and protect them, because it’s a bad , bad dealing.

“We don’t know the extent of the damage, but he struggles to emphasize it and generally tells you it gets worse over time.

“The one thing I know now is that he’s struggling and there’s a bit of pain on the inside of his knee, so we need to strip it down and find out how bad it is.

“I know it may not be clean with some contacts, but that’s not only the worst tackle in this game, that’s one of the worst I’ve seen since the start of the season, without a doubt.”

Biereth got his loan at Motherwell off to the best possible start with a goal and assist on his debut.