Stoke City's young captain Ryan Shawcross will today be celebrating receiving his first senior England call up, having gotten the phone call from Fabio Capello to take part in England's mid-week game against African Cup of Nations winners Egypt. In contrast another promising youngster will be spending this International break in a hospital having undergone an emergency operation on his horribly fractured leg endured at the Britannia Stadium during Arsenal's courageous and battling 3-1 win.

Arsene Wenger was visibly livid that a similar injury had occurred to a member of his squad for the third time in four years having seen Abou Diaby and Eduardo suffer the same injury at Sunderland in 2006 and Birmingham in 2008. Whilst the challenge was more clumsy than malicious, Wenger ,who described the challenge and injury as "beyond words" is unlikely to share that view as he questioned "Is a three match ban enough?."

Whilst the usual excuses for Shawcross were made that "he isn't that type of player" and as human slingshot Rory Delap says that "he's not a lad that would go out and do that", he went in recklessly and needlessly into a tackle that Sky Sports deemed so bad to refuse to show the replay, and they were correct not to as Ramsey's leg dangled in two different directions as Shawcross left the field in tears. Regardless of whether Shawcross meant to injure Ramsey or not, he has brought about the old argument, that the only way to stop Arsenal is to kick Arsenal.

Ramsey, who has come through his operation on his fibula and tibia, both of which were broken in the collision, is remarkably said to be in good spirits according to his Wales manager John Toshack who will be without one of his star players for months to come.