Sadio Mane was booked for diving during Liverpool's 2-1 win over Villa last weekend
The Senegalese was booked after he appeared to have been brought down by Aston Villa's Frederic Guilbert in the penalty area.
The event stirred up a mind game between Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp with both team getting set to lock horns on Sunday.
Pep had initially called Sadio Mane a diver on his post match interview after beating Southampton 2-1, but he soon later faced resistance from Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp who hit back to the defence of his star man.
And former England manager Sam Allardyce has also come to the defence of the Liverpool forward but in a manner most Anfield faithful won't cherish, as he shifted the 'diving' barb at Mohame Salah instead.
Speaking at the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT, Allardyce said: "I think Mo Salah is more inclined to do that than Mane.
"Certainly in the last year people were pointing out that Salah was going down too easily and won a huge amount of penalties that perhaps he didn't quite deserve.
"But if you get the contact you have got to make the referee's mind up, and you've got VAR to determine now whether it is a dive.
"The problem you've got here is they are not judging if the contact is accidental. The ruling of 'intentional' seems to have gone out the window – it's just if there is contact.
"Going down in the box, certainly most strikers if they feel contact and are not going to score, will go down."
No comments:
Post a Comment