5 footballers who love diving more than breakfast this season
With the slyest of grins on his face, Tottenham Hotspur’s Mauricio Pochettino declared the Premier League wasn’t home to pure football anymore. “Maybe, you were more pure 20, 25, 30 years ago. Now you are like us!” He was referring to and defending England's supposed great hope, Dele Alli.
The Argentine is right. The Premier League isn't the same football league anymore. Given the ‘global’ influence – as Pochettino described it himself – the league is drawing certain aspects of the game from all over the world through managers and players. This was always going to happen; it’s an unavoidable threat, a corruption to fair play and a virus that disgusts millions of fans the world over.
Yet, we persist with it knowing very well we’re putting referees in a tough position and that ought to be a crime. To put someone under so much stress just to benefit your peers; to dupe him and earn an illegitimate benefit and in the broadest of senses, to let him take the blame for something cruel you did.
Here’s looking at five football players who’ve been diving way too much recently: (Sorry but Ashley Young won’t make this list given his failure to regularly feature for Manchester United)
#1 Dele Alli
Tottenham Hotspur pulled off an incredible coup when they agreed to sign a young Dele Alli from MK Dons. He was the Player of the Year in the English Championship and he’s carried his incredible form into the Premier League.
And with England, he’s touted as the kind of midfielder who could possibly take them back to the upper echelons of international football. Someone with so much talent, the right physical build and the kind of pace that combines so well with the way he plays, Alli often resorts to the dark arts instead of playing football the way it was supposed to be played.
His latest dive against Swansea in the Premier League which earned his side a penalty was embarrassing, disgusting and disrespected referee Jon Moss unlike anything else that entire game. And that isn’t the only instance, he’s done it tonnes of times before – even during last season’s title chase run.
Pochettino may be a good manager and a great tactician but his inability to deal with football's 'less pure' tacts puts a part of the blame on him.