Diving

[Rocksuperstar]

Ok, some will say it wasn't a dive, contact was made but today Joe Allen showed himself up. I am still fuming that someone, in this modern age where apparently we're trying to straighten out cheats and combat "simulation", a player can barge around and collide with a hundred players and stay on their feet yet, the second they cross the line into the box, go down under the most slight contact. Not even contact that would've bought them down in any way, ANY contact and bang, down they go and, just to make it worse, the referees are all too damn blind/scared/unable to enforce the rules, the sole reason they are on the pitch, and they give it.

It's not just today, this happens regularly, and it makes me sick that people idolise them. Cheating - lets call it what it is, and despite all the protests from the FA about the integrity of their referees, they do nothing but encourage it and this is what fans the flames and keeps it going.

Today - did the ref for one second consult his linesmen? No. Did he for one second think about the 50/50s and heavy tackles that Allen had been part of prior to the contact that apparently felled him like a tree? No. He just bottled it and gave it up.

I am genuinely fed up with football - Spurs can be great, Spurs can suck, but if i have to continue watching such genuinely embarrassing play acting going on, hear commentators praise them for their "presence of mind" and "ability to win a penalty", see managers ignore it and the FA womble on, oblivious to the pathetic play acting that goes on and now means that the top teams do not set out to win, they set out to penalise the other team and make them lose.

There is no pride in a player like Joe Allen, simply this blind ambition and a belief that, should he do this enough and Liverpool win anything because of it then he'll be a hero to the fans - for what? Being a pussy whip who can't score a goal from open play, so has to cheat? Great hero, great role-model.

Personally, if i was captain of a team and that happened to us, i would instruct the entire team to lineup and, one after the other, address Allen to his face and tell him that now we know what a bottle job, what a pride-less loser he is, that he has to lie and cheat and then get someone else to do the job he can't do.

Clearly the referees and FA have no intention of addressing this, and barracking from fans appears to achieve nothing (unless it's racist/sexist/bigotted in any way, then it cuts oh so deep) so that leaves only the players who can do anything to combat it.

Until that happens, i'm done with bothering watching games. I might catch highlights but i'm not going to make an effort to tune in just to watch a bunch of paid professionals fake, cheat and lie their way up the table.

If anyone else can think of a way to combat it, i would love to know. If anyone has any examples of the FA promising to combat this sort of bullshit, post it up so we can see what efforts they've made. Right now though, i'm done with this horseshit.

 

[riggi]

2014 mate, that ship has sailed. Plenty the clubs could do but the result is more important.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

2014 mate, that ship has sailed. Plenty the clubs could do but the result is more important.

That's just it - i doubt there is much the clubs could do. If you fine a player who dived and got a penalty that won a team a match, then the club fines them, you just know they'd be straight onto their brief to argue it, threaten them with some European work rule or some shit, and the club would end up being punished for trying to do the right thing.

The FA just spout pointless rhetoric about it, referees do nothing - which leaves the only people left able to affect a player who considers diving part & parcel of the game is the other players.

Every single week we see it, tiniest contact, sometimes even no contact at all which is sold off as allowed for "anticipating contact" - contact which may never have come, but the rate of diving compared to the rate of people being booked for diving is obscene.

I really am done with it all, i have enough strains at work, i don't need to watch people who are paid several thousand times more than me per hour than i earn a month, play acting, cheating and mugging off thousands of fans, the FA and the whole spirit of the game.

You can be booked for unsportsmanlike behavior, you can be retrospectively punished for it too, yet this is never bought up with diving, but more than that - football used to be about pride, about being skillful, riding out the challenge, scoring goals that you'll remember forever. Now there is no pride, they don't give a toss if they come out of the game looking like an A-grade soft **** who can't ride a challenge, can't shoot under pressure and has no self-respect whatsoever.

WHY do these weak-as-piss humans get idolized the way they do? It's pathetic on a level i can't even describe.

 

[Syn_13]

Ok, some will say it wasn't a dive, contact was made but today Joe Allen showed himself up. I am still fuming that someone, in this modern age where apparently we're trying to straighten out cheats and combat "simulation", a player can barge around and collide with a hundred players and stay on their feet yet, the second they cross the line into the box, go down under the most slight contact. Not even contact that would've bought them down in any way, ANY contact and bang, down they go and, just to make it worse, the referees are all too damn blind/scared/unable to enforce the rules, the sole reason they are on the pitch, and they give it.

It's not just today, this happens regularly, and it makes me sick that people idolise them. Cheating - lets call it what it is, and despite all the protests from the FA about the integrity of their referees, they do nothing but encourage it and this is what fans the flames and keeps it going.

Today - did the ref for one second consult his linesmen? No. Did he for one second think about the 50/50s and heavy tackles that Allen had been part of prior to the contact that apparently felled him like a tree? No. He just bottled it and gave it up.

I am genuinely fed up with football - Spurs can be great, Spurs can suck, but if i have to continue watching such genuinely embarrassing play acting going on, hear commentators praise them for their "presence of mind" and "ability to win a penalty", see managers ignore it and the FA womble on, oblivious to the pathetic play acting that goes on and now means that the top teams do not set out to win, they set out to penalise the other team and make them lose.

There is no pride in a player like Joe Allen, simply this blind ambition and a belief that, should he do this enough and Liverpool win anything because of it then he'll be a hero to the fans - for what? Being a pussy whip who can't score a goal from open play, so has to cheat? Great hero, great role-model.

Personally, if i was captain of a team and that happened to us, i would instruct the entire team to lineup and, one after the other, address Allen to his face and tell him that now we know what a bottle job, what a pride-less loser he is, that he has to lie and cheat and then get someone else to do the job he can't do.

Clearly the referees and FA have no intention of addressing this, and barracking from fans appears to achieve nothing (unless it's racist/sexist/bigotted in any way, then it cuts oh so deep) so that leaves only the players who can do anything to combat it.

Until that happens, i'm done with bothering watching games. I might catch highlights but i'm not going to make an effort to tune in just to watch a bunch of paid professionals fake, cheat and lie their way up the table.

If anyone else can think of a way to combat it, i would love to know. If anyone has any examples of the FA promising to combat this sort of bullshit, post it up so we can see what efforts they've made. Right now though, i'm done with this horseshit.

It's shit, but that's what it is now. The sad thing is I found myself shouting at the TV to Adebayor right at the end of the game asking him why he didn't just go down. At that very moment, even though we still didn't have a chance of getting anything out of it, I was hoping one of our players would "buy" a penalty. Not because I advocate cheating, but because it was the only way we were going to get one. It was more of a pen than Allen's, Ade's shirt was being pulled even more, but because he didn't go down he got nothing. It's bloody sad.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

It's shit, but that's what it is now. The sad thing is I found myself shouting at the TV to Adebayor right at the end of the game asking him why he didn't just go down. At that very moment, even though we still didn't have a chance of getting anything out of it, I was hoping one of our players would "buy" a penalty. Not because I advocate cheating, but because it was the only way we were going to get one. It was more of a pen than Allen's, Ade's shirt was being pulled even more, but because he didn't go down he got nothing. It's bloody sad.

But that's not Manu's fault if the ref didn't give it when he was being clearly fouled, and i doubt he'd have been given it if he had gone down. Ade doesn't have much luck when it comes to being fouled in the box and getting bugger all for it.

Referees are no longer adequate to do the job on their own (we can forget about linesm... sorry, "assistant referees", as they barely ever open their mouths and on the rare occasion the ref does consult them, they get it badly wrong), but even a 4th official i doubt would've changed the calls today. They'd do exactly what the FA does and blindly back the ref's decision in the moment - it's either that or they declare the referee got it wrong and devalue everyone's opinion of them for the remainder of the 90 minutes. Won't work.

Players need to stop being ****s, that's a large part of it.

 

[Syn_13]

But that's not Manu's fault if the ref didn't give it when he was being clearly fouled, and i doubt he'd have been given it if he had gone down. Ade doesn't have much luck when it comes to being fouled in the box and getting bugger all for it.

Referees are no longer adequate to do the job on their own (we can forget about linesm... sorry, "assistant referees", as they barely ever open their mouths and on the rare occasion the ref does consult them, they get it badly wrong), but even a 4th official i doubt would've changed the calls today. They'd do exactly what the FA does and blindly back the ref's decision in the moment - it's either that or they declare the referee got it wrong and devalue everyone's opinion of them for the remainder of the 90 minutes. Won't work.

Players need to stop being ****s, that's a large part of it.

He's a big man and a bit of a character, probably why he doesn't get much luck. However, Drogba did buy a lot of pens and free kicks. Then again, he played for a bigger club and I'm convinced that the refs favour those clubs. Some of the pens teams like Liverpool, Arsenal and United have won in the past border on the ridiculous. Then you get us, who a couple of seasons ago couldn't even buy a penalty.

The FA is a big laughing stock anyway. All the way from the way they handle the national side to club level. Particularly when it comes to the way they enforce their laws. They just don't use common sense when coming to a decision.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Even when Drogbastard came on last night he managed to show his skill at obtaining free-kick by using his body
language to simulate him being fouls when it was a nothing scenario. Breaks up the game to his advantage.

 

[nightgoat]

Liverpool are the absolute worst when it comes to diving. Cheating fucks, every last one of them. And Brenton is just a massive hypocrite, condoning, ignoring and encouraging it all having spent two entire seasons orchestrating a witch hunt against Gareth Bale.

 

[JerryGarcia]

The only way to cut it out is to have video replays. They stop play on average of about 45 seconds to a minute I'd guess anyway for penalties, that's plenty of time for someone to watch the replay a few times over and if a player is shown to have dived then they can just play on after the diver has been booked.

The one today pissed me off more than any I can remember, I know some of our fans think it was a good decision but I just don't see it. There was no pull of the shirt by Dier, he literally just touched Allen's shoulder and he flung himself to the ground. It was so obviously a dive and it doesn't matter if there's contact, it wasn't a foul! Dowd should give up, he's useless at his job and he's a complete bellend anyway.

I can't give up watching football but I know what RSS is saying, every time we get screwed I lose a bit more enjoyment. There's no reason not to have proper video replays, they could also punish a player after the game if it can be shown that he clearly dived. Personally I'd deduct Liverpool 3 points for cheating and give them to us, the same should go for all teams obviously so it's not just Spurs blinkers.

 

[UncleBuck]

Unfortunately dude the second they decided to call cheating 'simulation' football in this country was knackered.

 

[nightgoat]

The one today pissed me off more than any I can remember, I know some of our fans think it was a good decision but I just don't see it. There was no pull of the shirt by Dier, he literally just touched Allen's shoulder and he flung himself to the ground. It was so obviously a dive and it doesn't matter if there's contact, it wasn't a foul! Dowd should give up, he's useless at his job and he's a complete bellend anyway.

There's a clear delay between Allen's shirt being lightly ruffled and him hurling himself to the floor. You can see the point at which he contemplates carrying on with his clear path to goal but then just chucks himself on the floor like a dirty little cheat.

 

[JerryGarcia]

Jesus I just can't believe Dowd fell for it, well I can... but he should have been able to tell. Look at the way he sticks his arm in the air as if to say he's been fouled too. What a ****, I imagine the scousers are calling it a blatant pen.

 

[CrazyConrad]

Watching that video clip makes me even more furious then it did yesterday. Those who actually mean that is foul needs to get their eyes (or head) examined.

No way in hell is that anything but a dive. Its even a shit attempt of a dive but to bad we had Dowd reffing the game. Any other sensible ref would have booked Allen for diving (not sure there are any in England)

The sad thing about it all is that the love we once had for the game is getting so thin these days that I am not sure anything is worth it anymore.

 

[Japhet]

When a player crashes to the ground in the box there should be 2 outcomes. A Penalty or a booking for diving. If the level of contact is light but the player collapses that is simulation and should be a booking. There will of course be borderline cases, but Joe Allen wasn't one of those. I've been sick of watching diving for years now and it pisses me off just as much when our players do it. I'd also add that there is a distinct difference between 'contact' and a foul being committed. This seems to have been totally lost in recent times.

 

[TaoistMonkey]

That's a terrible dive.

He won that pen.

 

[nightgoat]

Considering Yaya got booked when a Stoke Orc swung a leg at his knee on Saturday makes that penalty even more ridiculous.

 

[browndchl]

I was annoyed with Chadli for not going down in the 2nd half. Think he may have been wide left and heading into (or in) the box after evading a few tackles. Their RB (who was on a booking already) lunged for the ball. Chadli pushed the ball past the defender and tried to hurdle the challenge. Contact was made which threw him off balance, but he continued for the ball. The goal opportunity was lost and another possible booking gone too - all for being honest!

 

[Stavrogin]

Even when Drogbastard came on last night he managed to show his skill at obtaining free-kick by using his body
language to simulate him being fouls when it was a nothing scenario. Breaks up the game to his advantage.

This has been a perennial problem for us. We always seem to lose out in terms of physicality.

We have so few players that are able to use their body to any sort of advantage. In fact we've had a preponderance of players whose physicality is a disadvantage (lennon, Huddlestone, Sandro etc.). We have Dembele now but perhaps our only other first teamer who could use his body effectively (basically cheat) was Assou-Ekotto.

You can also see this in how we give away/gain free kicks against other top sides. I find that more often than not, when we give away a foul it is to the opposition's advantage. When the opposition give away a free kick it is generally to their advantage - ie. it breaks up a move, as you say.

 

[Gassin's finest]

We didn't need an action replay in the ground to tell it was a dive, he was already falling in slow motion. I was sat right in line of it, absolutely pathetic. even more pathetic that it was given.

The premier league is just an obscene joke now, and has been for a good 10 years. Just go watch League 1 and 2 mate. Proper football with proper players. Cheaper too.

 

[Coyboy]

We didn't need an action replay in the ground to tell it was a dive, he was already falling in slow motion. I was sat right in line of it, absolutely pathetic. even more pathetic that it was given.

The premier league is just an obscene joke now, and has been for a good 10 years. Just go watch League 1 and 2 mate. Proper football with proper players. Cheaper too.

And yet you will continue to go the Lane?