Diving

Quite surprised that Ashley Young didn't take to throwing himself about alongside his team-mates last night. Always been their number one for trying to con the ref but seems he's lost his crown to Januzaj

The dive by Januzaj was spectacularly bad. He must have been 3 or 4 feet away from the defender when he went down. Sad thing is, he could have got to the ball and squared it for a certain equaliser. They deserved to go out just for that incident without mentioning the Di Maria one, which was almost as bad.

Quoted from ginnywings

The dive by Januzaj was spectacularly bad. He must have been 3 or 4 feet away from the defender when he went down. Sad thing is, he could have got to the ball and squared it for a certain equaliser. They deserved to go out just for that incident without mentioning the Di Maria one, which was almost as bad.

When you saw how far he'd gone past his man before taking the plunge it really didn't make sense

As you say he could have picked a pass from where he was and Utd could have been back in it but no. - he chose to cheat and quite rightly got booked

Given the number of bookings he's had surely he should be up before the FA for bringing the game into disrepute

If they are serious about cleaning up the game, then this 'tactic' needs to be clamped down on

People underestimate the role fans should play in eradicating this from the game.

The problem, like many in football, is that many fans are utterly incapable of pointing out the problems within their own club, and remain divided on traditional lines - prefering to see issues like this as a competition similar to the match itself. "Club x is worse than Club Y, and Club Z never get punished for it..." blah blah balderdash - you see it every week from these fans, mainly fans of Premiership clubs, and legitimised by the shite spouted by supposed top-level managers and pundits.

I was extremely heartened to hear Alan Connell booed and given stick by town fans when he  clearly threw himself to the ground whilst playing for us a few times. It's not something I want to watch, and certainly not something I'd want to become common at this club.

Will we ever see fans of Prem clubs booing their own players for blatantly cheating? No, because they are, on the whole, utter divs.

On the other hand, I find it really frustrating to see our players like Mackreth, Jolley and Arnold, trying to play proper football, beat men and dribble the ball, only to be barged and chopped at by clogging defenders.

If anything I would like to see our players diving a bit more.  OK, not the Ashley Young-style sprawls, but looking to run at defenders, push it past and look for a leg to go over in the box.  Even Palmer, for a big guy, gets a lot of grief off defenders and could have had a penalty on Saturday if he;d been a bit more astute.

Each to their own, but I couldn't bring myself to cheer on a bunch of flipping cheats.

There's a reason the referee is stood in the middle, and that's to determine whether an offence has been committed. They don't get it right all the time but I'm fine with that - it's part of the game (to an extent) and always has been.

If players get fouled, then fine - free kick. If they haven't, then they should be playing on and either trying to score or trying to get the ball back - not looking for a foul.

Quoted from ska face

Each to their own, but I couldn't bring myself to cheer on a bunch of flipping cheats.

There's a reason the referee is stood in the middle, and that's to determine whether an offence has been committed. They don't get it right all the time but I'm fine with that - it's part of the game (to an extent) and always has been.

If players get fouled, then fine - free kick. If they haven't, then they should be playing on and either trying to score or trying to get the ball back - not looking for a foul.

Absolutely spot on!

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

Quite surprised that Ashley Young didn't take to throwing himself about alongside his team-mates last night. Always been their number one for trying to con the ref but seems he's lost his crown to Januzaj

He was too busy trying to get Bellerin sent off wasn't he?

Its sad enough that top quality players get a reputation for diving (Owen, Bale, Ronaldo, Ginola), let alone over-rated ones like Young, or that Watford chap in the ToTW thread, or half a dozen recent Gateshead players.

Whilst I'm on my soapbox; the bbc did some article on which offences are the worst - spitting, diving, horrendous challenges.  I think I missed the point.  Surely all need to be deterred, not us argue over the least bad.  Cisse and Evans got 7 & 6 game bans, shouldn't DiMaria get that or more (DiCanio got 11 GAMES; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/199792.stm )?

That Januzaj is the most over-hyped and overrated young player in Europe I think.

Never thought he merited all the hype just because he scored a couple of goals against Sunderland last season.

Didn't see the Chelski / PSG match last night but I heard it was just ever more gamesmanship

This one looks like a very worthy Oscar nomination

[youtube]OWwGjwO1pTs[/youtube]