Kolo Toure has branded Bolton's Kevin Davies a 'disgrace' after the striker's first-half lunge saw Gael Clichy rushed to hospital for scans on his shin.

The French defender suffered no more than heavy bruising to his leg during the Gunners' 3-1 victory at the Reebok but Toure insisted such a challenge should be stamped out of the game and teams should focus on kicking the football, rather than each other.

"The tackle was a disgrace — very bad. There is no place for that in football," said a riled Toure.

"I have nothing against Kevin Davies, he seems a good guy. But he uses his elbows far too much.

"It is wrong to allow those sorts of challenges in football. If we are going to allow that, you might just as well get in kids off the street because they can make those challenges just the same as anybody else can.

"Football is supposed to be a game of skill. I am sure we could go out and kick players just as hard as we are kicked but we’d rather concentrate on playing football.

"It happened just before half-time and in the break we knew we had to make sure we did not allow ourselves to become intimidated.

"In the past we have allowed ourselves to be intimidated but this time we knew that it would be tough at Bolton and we were ready for that."

Toure also believes results like the one at the weekend and their 4-0 thumping of Blackburn last week will stand the team in good stead for a title assault this year, as away trips to the North-West have often seen the team bullied out of contests in recent seasons.

"We know that we have to win our matches away from home this season if we are going to be champions because we dropped far too many points away from home last season," he added.

"In previous years we have been too easy to beat away but we have shown this week that we are able to win these games and with the draw in Ukraine in between them, overall it is a good week.

"Mr Wenger was certainly happy with the two wins in the league."

[Guardian-Series]

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback