Obviously Rooney got some quick diving lessons from RvN and Ronaldo among others since joining ManU! Of course Rooney will get the same special consideration other ManU players get around the league, so he'll largely get away with it.
I love the way you talk about diving when you have the worst offenders in the EPL. Reyes, Pires, Henry, Cole, Lauren (see 2nd half of the match) and Bergkamp. Didn't Pires dive to earn a penalty in your draw against Everton last year? Shut up and eat your humble pie.
Actually, it was against Pompey, I believe. And at the time, I was ashamed and said so. Pompey were wronged and it wasn't right. So why don't you guys just be men about it and admit that Rooney dived? Its part of the game, unfortunately, and it went your way today. You stole a win and off we go into the heart of the season. You'll still be looking up at us when its all sorted out at the end of the season. By the way, for all you guys pointing at Henry as such a diver, maybe you'd want to watch the match again and see how many times he came under heavy challenges in the box and sprung to his feet each time. Not once did he flail to the ground and never once did he hold his hands up looking for a call. Get real.
Rooney did do a good of job of flopping. I won't deny that but I am tired of the other Arsenal fans claiming injustice and that Rooney is a horrible player considering the number of your own players that dive as well. Ronaldo is a flopper but you also have Pires and Henry who have been known to flop to the ground. Henry didn't dive this match but I am referring to the Charity Shield when Silvestre escorted him across the endline and Henry sat up looking at the ref like he couldn't believe that he didn't get a penalty. I enjoyed today's match immensely and it wasn't even because we won. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the committment of the players. For all of us who are complaining about the tackles, this is a man's game and English soccer is known to be the most physical and brutal of games. Some tackles went over board: Ruud on Cole and even Cole on Ronaldo. We each have a right to complain but if Riley would have carded this game the way he should have, the game as a contest would have been ruined with us finishing 8V8. I have to say this is one the best matches I have ever seen but the tops will probably be the 2-2 draw at Highbury two seasons ago.
i dont liek it when Arsenal players dive either anyway once the penalty went it it effectively killed the game
We have the worst offenders in the league!!?? Are you kidding?? Reyes is repeatedly whacked in each game. The camera will only give you touches of events occurring off the ball. In any event, he has come a long way since last season. Keep in mind that learning curves are always steep for Euro bread players. The EPL is a different animal altogether. In addition, Reyes was carrying ankle injuries from Wednesday's Champions League tie. I don't blame him for going down. You would too if you ankles were bruised and battered. Furthermore, he has to endure other hard challenges. Recall the younger of the Neville sisters barrelling into Reyes' knee at full throttle. Pires has used gamesmanship to his advantage in the past. However, while it appears that he goes down easily, it is important to keep in mind that Bobby recovered from a potential career ending injury. It is hard to shake such an event. In addition, he is not exactly the strongest midfielder in the league. How can you include Henry in your list? What you don't know is how many times he has been in positions where he could have easily dove, but chose to stay on his feet and play the ball instead. Recall the FA Cup final in May 2003, for example. The Soton defender practically ripped Henry's shirt from his back in the first 10 minutes of play. Ask yourself what Ruudy would have done? I'd wager that Ruud would have capitalized on the opportunity, slotted it home and then paraded as if he had just scored the winning goal in the World Cup final. Bergkamp a diver? I can't entertain that. He is a pure class act. Even your fellow United buddies will attest to that. How are Cole and Lauren divers? Cole has grown tremendously as a player. He does not do as many silly things. Why the hell is Lauren on your list?
forget all this diving crap. if rio himself is saying the penalty is tough and go, then the frickin FA should have a second look... but obviously they won't. and go figure, they'll charge wenger with something ridiculous even though rednose makes similiar statements all the frickin time. there is no justice in the EPL when manure are involved.
understatement of the century i still dont understand how Manure supporters sit there and wonder if they are gonna get a penalty and act all surprised they know if any of their players gets touched theyve already got the free kick by Riley Its like Israel Vs Syria and the referee is from Iraq
If Riley is so pro Man U then why didn't he give us the penalty when Cole hacked Ronaldo down in the box? Surely if he was biased to Man U he would have taken the opportunity to give us the 2nd penalty and make the result of the game more certain..... He made a bad call when he had a restricted view of the incident (Sol's kind of a big player to see past you know). Nothing more, nothing less - conspiracy theories like those being espoused on here are beneath you guys
Oh for God's sake, grow up. How long would your unbeaten run be if you hadn't had bad penalty decisions go your way? [cough] Portsmouth [/cough]
if we get a decision for us from a dive im happy about the decision but i dont like poeple diving nothing you can do its up to the player
correct me if im wrong i dont think i have said anywhere that im not happy about the decision i said im not happy about the fact he dived
fine - so I'll look forward to you berating your player the next time an Arsenal player dives to secure a penalty. As I do now - I wish Rooney hadn't but in the modern game this is a common occurence by the majority of players on all teams. All these cries of Conspiracy are far from becoming and have more than a whiff of hypocrisy about them.
Pires is a diving cheat. What has any injury got to do with his dive at Portsmouth? he actually kicked out in order to have some contact to go down with. Bergkamp is a wonderful player, but he is not the class act many of you like to make out. If he has the chance to elbow or stamp on someone off the ball, he takes it.
I think you'll find that very few people would actually back Pires against any claims of diving. He is a coward to all intensive purposes. He bottles challenges and if an opportunity presents itself he will stoop to diving. I don't accept it for one minute. It sickens me to a degree but then you get used to it to an extent because it's happened to your team before and you'll know it'll happen again. People's anger is not one without reflection it is quite easy to say "well one of your's did it so how can you complain?". That is a total bollock of an argument i'm afraid, no-one's keeping score & this "evens itself out" business is complete BS. When it happens it's a disgrace no matter what side of the fence it falls on, and something should be done about it. Also Prawn regarding yesterday, i was well pissed off with your attempts to en-act revenge but i've seen some of your more reasoned posts on the United board and this, so well played, no hard feelings. And i'm sorry mate but van Nistelrooy has it coming to him. How can someone who's been out of the game for a year with a career-threatening knee injury, go out and do another professional like that? I don't believe you can say it wasn't intentional because there is previous, a nasty history of incidences involving van Nistelrooy & certain Arsenal players (Ljungberg, Keown x amount of times, Lauren, Vieira & now Cole). I don't want to see a player out of the game, but if this keeps up, i can only see it reaching an unfortunate crescendo. Aside from the obvious (for Keane read Vieira). I respect Neville because he is essentially a professional, a battler, Scholes is prone to the odd reckless tackle but for the most part he is an honest player. van Nistelrooy however is a disgrace & a cheat.
Couldn't agree more - the whole diving issue seems to have become more prevalent with the introduction of foreign players to the EPL. As you say, it should never be accepted and players should be castigated whenever they do it - regardless of whether they are on your team or not. Problem is what do you do? They've tried introducing the yellow for diving but refs seem reluctant to use it. There are also the occasions like yesterday where it took slo-mo replays to identify that it was a dive - Riley could not have a clear view so should he have called it or not? In this case you will prevent genuine penalties as well as dives. The only clear answer currently is video replays but do we really want to go down that road with the clear issues regarding slowing the game down etc that go with it? I can't see a solution to this. Good man and apologies likewise. We do seem to have a habit of butting heads every now and again though, don't we... My opinion on this probably aint gonna make me too popular with the other Man U fans. I thought what he did yesterday was disgusting. You could see from the reaction on his face the snide pleasure he got from doing it and getting away with it. It is a waste of a glorious talent - there is no reason for him to do it so why does he? Not trying to equate this on par but I find it interesting that there is a similar dirty streak to Bergkamp (he's far too keen to throw the elbow out when things aren't going his way). Again, phenomenal talent but with an edge that is wholly unnecessary. I hope the FA nail Ruud for what he did yesterday - at least a 3 game ban. I also wouldn't be hugely disappointed if his current lack of form continued and made SAF consider selling him. I think the cash we got would help bring in some replacements for our ageing players (just how much longer can Giggs and Schole go on) and bring in some new talent up front. I'd love to see Smith getting more time on the pitch - there's a lot more to come from him and we wont see it while Ruud is at OT.
are you talking about what happened with Cole? if so..it went so fast that only in slow mo do you see it but look at his eyes when he goes in on the challenge
Yes I'm referring to his attack on Cole. It was bang out of order and intentional from everything I saw (including the replays). Just because I support Man U doesn't mean I have to try to defend the indefensible. I actually think the FA will do him and he will deserve every minute of suspension he gets. It will also mean that we get to have a proper look at Smith/Saha/Rooney as combinations up front. Our most successful strike force did not include a pure fox-in-the-box like Ruud - there is no reason I can see why our other 3 strikers cannot attain a similar combined goal per game ratio than we do with Ruud in the team.
tahts what i meant by look at his eyes in the replay its clearly intenetional and what ive noticed in recent times, people go for knees now...i guess its the new achiles heel
Until the FA get tough and allow video review and suspension after the fact (I hate it, but like you say, what else can you do) for clear cases of diving it's oing to keep up and get worse. Diving is taking over the game and it is good for noone. Clearly something has to be done. I should probably get in here somewhere too. I had some posts yesterday I wish I could take back and ummm, rephrase. What is sad is to see a player who could be great doing this kind of thing, whatever shirt he is wearing.
whats tops all of these things is Roy Keane how can you actually want to go into a tackle to end someones career