The dive debate, put to bed.
Afternoon all. Rather a short one today as Mrs X Snr (who, for those who have not been paying attention is not my wife (that is Mrs X) or my sister (that is Ms. X) but my mother) came back off holiday and wanted collecting from the drop off point. This meant that, as I finished work at 7am, I caught four hours kip. So bed rebeckons as soon as this article is done.
The Mark Davies ‘dive’ rumbles on, at least down in the Black Country. As sorry as I am to see a regular six points per season leave the Premier League, the fact that there seems to be a consensus that they have somehow been cheated out of at least a point really does seem like the bleatings of a poor loser.
The rules are simple. If a player trips another player in the box, then it is a penalty. If the player who has been tripped uses his forward momentum to create a more spectacular fall, it doesn’t make it more or less of a penalty. And, as Roger Johnson definitely made contact with Mavies’s foot, it was a penalty. I’ve seen penalties given for less and I’ve seen stonewall penalties not given for more. And it wasn’t like Mavies went down in a Balotelli/Suarez dying swan, shot from a grassy knoll, take your head off kind of way. He fell. Granted, he didn’t need to. But he fell nonetheless.
This has left poor, ickle Michael Kightly feeling all ‘distraught’. Not distraught in a team mate has had a heart attack or just been diagnosed with leukaemia distraught. In fact it isn’t even seen your dog get knocked over by a car distraught. In fact, it probably isn’t even see your best mate run off with your girlfriend because he knocked her up distraught. It is getting relegated, have to take a pay cut or find a new club distraught. Which isn’t really distraught at all.
Kightly accuses (stop yawning at the back) Mavies of diving, the article going as far at to suggest that Kightly accuses Mavies of being a cheat. However, Kightly goes on to say:
‘If it was the other way around, we`d have been claiming a penalty.‘
So, that means that, although Mavies is a cheat, if a Wolves player had done it they would have claimed a penalty, meaning that, if looked through the same eyes, they would have….err….cheated.
With logic like that, Wolves relegation should be considered to be Godsend.
Elsewhere, woman beater and all round ‘alright Stan, legend mate’ geezer, Stan ‘Stanley’ Collymore was making a lot of noise without actually saying anything yesterday, calling Mavies a (quiet at the back) cheat and saying that he would love to sit on a panel to arbitrate on diving, giving perpetrators a three match ban. Disregarding the fact that there was contact, I wouldn’t trust Stan to beat a panel, let alone sit on one. His assertion a couple of seasons ago that Bolton were ‘scum’ for taking OC from Burnley (a statement he apologised for) suggested that he had an axe to grind with Bolton and he was just waiting for another chance to have a go. Unfortunately, his words are all bluster and no substance. A bit like his playing career.
Right, I started writing this article at 4:30pm and it is now 8:00pm, suggesting that I am so tired typing is no longer considered second nature. So I will see you tomorrow with that all important Fantasy League update.
Contain yourselves.