If you’re going to dive, you have to do better than this
Mohamed Salah has been accused of diving against Crystal Palace this afternoon, as he went to ground despite receiving minimal contact – if any – from Mamadou Sakho in the penalty area.
Shielding the ball, Sakho attempted to tackle Salah, but didn’t make anywhere near enough contact to truly impede Salah.
Liverpool’s talisman saw this as an opportunity to drop to the ground in an attempt to win a penalty, with Liverpool trailing to Andros Townsend’s first half goal.
Nothing wrong here, I think we’ll agree.
Here, though, there is definitely something wrong, I think we’ll all agree.
Salah’s cynical attempt to deceive the referee has been criticised on Twitter from both sets of fans, and many, many neutrals.
Pitiful dive from Salah
— Ed Malyon (@eaamalyon) January 19, 2019
What a surprise to see Mo Salah throwing himself to the ground with zero contact. He didn’t make the most of minimal contact, he completely made up the contact.
— Five Year Plan (@FYPFanzine) January 19, 2019
https://twitter.com/from_burnley/status/1086650060715290624
Mo Salah at the diving again…
— Alex Truica (@AlexTruica) January 19, 2019
https://twitter.com/RoDuSu/status/1086651678349250566
It’s become quite a regular occurrence, seeing Salah accused of diving in the penalty area. Sometimes, like in this instance, that criticism is justified, but most of the time it is a case of the Egyptian receiving enough contact to bring him down while he runs at a frighteningly fast pace.
This sort of simulation, however, will prevent him from winning penalties in the future. He’s planted it in the referee’s mind now that he is a diver, and that sort of mud sticks.
