Wayne Rooney scored yet another winning goal as Manchester United won the Carling Cup on Sunday but the hot topic in Monday's comment pages isn't the Wembley show piece, it's the leg-breaking tackle by Ryan Shawcross.

Arsenal youngster Aaron Ramsey suffered a double fracture following the tough challenge at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday and Shawcross, who left the pitch in tears, was criticised by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger and defended by Stoke manager Tony Pulis.

Wenger claims it cannot be coincidence that the Gunners have suffered yet another horror injury and accused Shawcross of a "horrendous" challenge, while Pulis backed Shawcross and insists he is not a dirty player.

Writing in The Independent, Sam Wallace takes the Pulis view that the severity of the injury does not mean Shawcross can be called a dangerous footballer and that bad things sometimes happen by accident.

"An injury to a brilliant young player hurts everyone who loves football. It makes you contemplate the possibility of unfulfilled potential, the most heartbreaking aspect of sport; of the curtailed careers of players like Brian Clough, Paul Lake or, potentially, Owen Hargreaves.

And so a dangerous game of blame begins. When Arsene Wenger describes Ryan Shawcross's challenge on Ramsey as "horrendous" and "unacceptable" he has to realise that, coming from someone of his status, those words have a lasting effect on the reputation of a young player like Shawcross.

The basic question that we have to confront is whether, from the evidence available, Shawcross set out to hurt Ramsey in that split-second when both of them challenged for the ball. A personal view is that he did not and that Shawcross does not deserve to be stigmatised by Wenger."

In the Wenger corner is Martin Samuel, who uses his column in the Daily Mail to ask: How can so many broken legs be down to chance?

"These days, football gets its mitigations in early. It was the first time Shawcross has received a red card; he has subsequently and justifiably been called into the England squad and the majority agree there was no desire to harm in his challenge.

Yet malicious intent - the motivation to actually cause serious injury - is rare in football. One thinks of Roy Keane’s tackle on Alf Inge Haaland in the Manchester derby or the one by Gavin Maguire of Queens Park Rangers that ended the career of England full back Danny Thomas, and resulted in a compensation pay-out of £130,000.

Shawcross did not tackle Ramsey like that. He did however arrive late and with sufficient abandon to lose any chance of controlling the consequences. The greatest sickness in English football is that we do not recognise the wrong in that. ‘Spare me about how nice Shawcross is,’ Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, said acidly; but the testimonials to his decency were already under construction."