This is what I was talking about where the line gets blurry. There are two types of diving, the completely fake Suarez kind, and the 'going down easily' Lallana (and many, many others) kind. I don't like either, especially from our players, but the second is almost impossible to do anything significant about, there are some instances, like the Balotelli one against Ajax the other night, where a player is being fouled, in this case having his shirt pulled back, and despite this not being any cause for him to go down he goes down to highlight this and show that he is being fouled, even though by doing this he is in fact effectively diving. Then there's times where a player will see a challenge coming and anticipate it and throw himself down, much like Lallana for the first two today. It gets stupidly complicated, how much contact does there need to be for a player to throw themselves to the ground to try and show that he was being fouled? And when does it cross the line from a player trying to show that he was being fouled and a player trying to pretend they were being fouled? There are some circumstances where a player is being clearly fouled and then dives to make sure this is seen, that's not the end of the world as it is the fair result in the end if they get a penalty. But far, far, too often, you see a player running into the box with speed, a defender comes along side them barely placing pressure on them at all, and then there's a bump of shoulders, a slight clash of knees, and the player despite being barely knocked off balance will fling themselves down. The amount of times that happens fair outweighs the amount of times I see players trying to show they have been legitimately fouled, and for me that is diving, and cheating. Unfortunately, due to the lines being so blurry and there not being a clear enough distinction between the two, I think we're pretty much stuck with that. But as said earlier, the one thing we can do is ban clear divers, that will stamp out the blatant dives, and hopefully have a bit of an effect on the semi-dives too. But I think that's unlikely to happen, to most sane people it's been the obvious way forward for a long time, but still we are without any kind of serious action against diving despite it becoming more and more prevalent. I think we're stuck with it, because clearly no-one is going to do anything about it, unfortunately. Personally I'd really, really, rather our players don't do anything like that though, even if it means we don't get some decisions that other teams do, but again, unfortunately, I think they still will.
I have mixed thoughts on this, with my rose tinted glasses on, I saw three fouls, but as they weren't given, I must have been wrong, haven't seen any replays, however Lala didn't seem to deliberately dive. Unlike players like Clyne or Puncheon with low centre of gravity they seem to be able to recover and stay on their feet, Lala has a higher centre of gravity and when travelling at pace will always tumble with any form of contact, not necessarily a foul, but just physical contact is enough, inertia takes over. It is then down to the referee to decide whether the contact was fair or foul, but if a player is known to cry wolf, he is less likely to get a decision.
Just to emphasise my point, watching Football First on Sky and Clyne was clearly fouled by Routledge on the corner of the area and didn't go down and tried to play on, he didn't get a penalty either.
First penalty shout for Lala there was contact, he went down too easily, if you are lucky you may get a decision, all it got was a telling off for Lala. Not a penalty in my opinion.
Looking at the second shout when Lala got booked, again there was contact as Lala was already off balance, may be a tenuous Penalty shout but he didn't dive, the yellow was unwarranted. Good goal from Spider.
Looking at their goal, 75% Yosh 25% Gazza to blame, Yosh should not have dawdled on the ball. One bad mistake in the game, it's a blooming shame.
Third shout, definite block tackle in the area, little doubt that anyone else would have been given the penalty, what went on before must have influenced the Referee because he got that one wrong. Such is the way of the team at the basement of the Premier. I am basing my opinion on what I saw and what the commentators saw and said, others would probably dispute my view, but there it is.
Agree with all the above from saintdon: Clyne- if he goes to ground it's a penalty. Lallana 1st - not a penalty, deliberately gets tangled up in the defender to draw the foul, and when it doesn't really come falls over. Lallana 2nd - can see why the ref hasn't given it, as the ball has already got away from him. It wasn't however a yellow. Lallana 3rd - penalty. If the challenge didn't start outside the box, so at least a free-kick but pretty sure it happened in the box.
Not sure I agree with this. Yoshida was facing the goal and couldn't have seen Dyer coming. He had to deal with it with one touch, and let's face it, it could have gone anywhere in the stadium with his 1st touch. Keeper shouldn't be passing to someone where it isn't safe to take a touch.
I agree, someone should have given him the "man on" call and then he may have hoofed it, he probably thought he had enough skill to deal with it but it was a rotten bounce too. Lesson learnt I hope and not to repeated.
Motty was convinced the yellow was wrong, and the third Penalty shout was never in doubt! There you go.
It was a really bad touch by Yoshida in that area of the pitch, no matter who is around. It was almost a metre away from him, and a professional needs to control closer than that. But the ball from Gazza was pretty poor in that it was a bouncer. If it had just been put along the ground, we would have got away with it.
This is EXACTLY my point. If Lallana goes down under 2 challenges that were not fouls, so does not win the penalty, it's a case of the boy who cried wolf for the 3rd one. Now the referee is aware of Lallana's tendencies to go down easily, so he does not get the penalty. If Lallana could just stay on his feet, I am confident that the referee would have given the 3rd one as a penalty.
The refs are being told to come down hard on diving - the refs communicate with each other off the field at regular meetings and am sure they have drawn up a list of players to watch out for (as they do in the major tournaments for all sorts of naughtly behaviour) - Lallana is probably on the list of 'known divers'. Lets face it - he did it a number of times last season and has done so again this season too before yesterday. The bottom-line is he has created the problem not just for himself but ultimately the team.
Given that we all agree that, regardless of whether or not the incident was or was not a penalty, the yellow should not have been a yellow, can it be rescinded or will it count against his count as get Lala banned for a future game somewhere down the line?
Give Lala his due, he was on the end of a bad tackle on the left flank, but got up quickly, shook the aggressors hand and almost certainly saved him from a booking.
