Tackle out?

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Just read this week's Guardian's Secret Footballer Blog. It's an interesting take on the state of the tackle in the English Premier League, written in light of Vincent Kompany's recent dismissal.

 

Found this bit particularly interesting:-

 

One of the Premier League's most successful imports, Xabi Alonso, perhaps gave the most damning testimony as to why England can't crack it at international level. "I don't think tackling is a quality," he said. "At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply: 'Shooting and tackling'. I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play. How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don't understand football in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort and you will need it, but it isn't a quality to aspire to, a definition."

 

He also argues that with more players looking for fouls and trying to get other players sent off, the tackle is going out of the English game, concluding that it's probably not a bad thing, with more players having to rely on technique than crunching two-footers.

 

Is that realistic though? Will the end of the tackle see a Renaissance in the technique of English players?