Diving

[Ribble]

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.

He's been taking lessons from Stevie G I see.

 

[Hakkz]

This is why I'm not that interested in CL. Too many games decided by penalties and red cards, don't like it.

 

[Gassin's finest]

And yet you will continue to go the Lane?

Had this disease far too long to stop now...

 

[TheChosenOne]

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.

I have always said we are naive in many of these scenarios when we play the big teams -their 'professionalism' seems to bypass referees.

 

[jurgen]

They also won a lot of freekicks flopping over very easily in 50/50 challenges.. I know everyone wants us to be the bigger men, but why do our coaches never seem to get our players to use their bodies in this way. They had 2 players, in the centre of the park and at fullback, booked, and yet we never really went at them trying to draw a foul. Or refusing to take a yellow and slowing their counter attacks, Allen was already stinking things up with his fouling of Lamela before the dive, but it definitely stopped a couple of attacks building.

And if it was Ashley Young diving like Allen, he gets a booking 100% of the time..

 

[Lufti]

They were a disgrace. Whenever we entered their half they were tugging our player's shirts and being physical yet we rarely went down. There was one moment where Allen himself almost took Lamela's shirt off and Lamela at least attempted to keep going. They employed very dirty tactics that whole match, and I think I genuinely hate that club more than Arsenal now. Mind you, watching the game at the weekend in a bar full or Liverpool fans didn't help. Sadly though, the diving isn't just from the Pool players, and it's one of the main reasons I don't want Welbeck. Not saying none of our players have ever dived before, but Welbeck makes a habit of it and I don't want to have to support him