Rival Watch™ 2013/2014

My bad

 

The manager doesn't have to comment on it in public. Sort things out behind closed doors. Making the media/pundits happy by criticising your own player for something as minor as diving is just not something I'd want to see.

 

Agree with this. The one United player i always felt had an undeserved reputation for diving (among opposition supporters) was Ronaldo, not saying he never dived but most of the time he went over because of his pace. If you watch games as a neutral you will see many players hit the ground and never appeal for anything yet commentators and pundits bring up diving to make themselves sound knowledgable about the game, they should know better. Sometimes (most of the time) players just stumble or lose balance and pundits should realise that statements like "he went down easy there" or "he was looking for a fowl" are not very clever and doing a great harm to the image of players and the game.

 

UIR.

Heads gone.

 

I don't get the fascination with diving to be honest. No worse than shirt pulling, appealing for offside/throw in/corner that you didn't win, bringing a player down when a team is counter attacking to stop them having a goal scoring chance etc.

 

Fair play Magic, this is how it should be

 

So a game winning penalty is minor?

 

Diving can happen anywhere on the pitch. And even if it does result in a penalty the only person to blame for that is the referee. No different to getting a game winning corner from something that was supposed to be a goal kick.

 

Not really minor then eh? a ref or linesman ****ing up on a corner or throw-in is not the same as a player cheating to gain advantage (in my opinion) and i know every player shouts "our ball" at every throw-in or dead ball situation but to me that is not the same somehow.

 

They are really though, aren't they? Both trying to gain an advantage by cheating. I can understand why you're saying it but I think its just because pundits & commentators condemn diving and blame the other stuff on the referees so no one cares about it as much. Its all the same, deceiving the referee to gain an advantage.

 

Agree with you fully here Lucas, cheating is cheating but the "our ball" thing has been around a long time and is kind of accepted (the officials are left to sort it out), diving has become the speciality of every pundit with a microphone in front of him

 

Southampton v Tottenham
Swansea v Everton

Hoping both the away teams drop points today, two tasty games

 

Same.

Need Everton to drop points especially.

Spurs aren't actually that far off either.

 

If Spurs win it's 6 points separating the top 6. Pretty even league so far.

 

so what result do you guys want between Arsenal and Chelsea?

 

0v0 definitely.

 

Draw, but goals from Hazard ad Ramsey

 

Gotta admit I'm liking the look of that Spurs team..

 

If Spurs can't score with that line up they're in trouble.

 

1-0 Southampton