Premiership Divers & Divas

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Dedicated to the Top Divers & Divas in the Premiership, we will continue to highlight each and every dive revealed by the TV cameras in the premiership throughout the season, keeping careful tabs on the worst offenders.
Top Premiership divers will be awarded one point each dive attempted.
The top-flight top diver will win the Premiership Divers & Divas Award for 2006-7.

Top Dives so far...

14.04.2007 - Sheffield Utd 3 West Ham 0
Carlos Tevez dived in an attempt to win a late penalty for West Ham and was rightly booked for his efforts.

24.02.2007 - Liverpool 4 Sheffield Utd 0
Although it didn't affect the score, Steve Gerrard's direction of the referee Steve Bennett for Liverpool's first penalty was comparable to Marty Scorsese setting up his actors for a scene in a movie. Cut to Neil Warnock: ' I was disappointed with Gerrard for the first penalty. I told him what he had done at half-time and he just said: "You think so, do you?" You only need to look at his eyes to see what he was about. He's looking at Bennett (the referee) before the corner is taken, waiting, telling him he's going to go down, then telling him to give a penalty and Bennett has gone for it.' Warnock was absolutely right. Gerrard was absolutely wrong. A cheap trick unworthy of such a fine player.

04.02.2007 - Tottenham 0 Manchester United 4
Referee Mark Clattenburg had a nightmare game, failing to award penalties both for Spurs' Anthony Gardner's clumsy lunge at Henrik Larsson and for Gary Neville's smothering challenge of Pascal Chimbonda. Although it can be claimed that honours were thus even on the penalties front, Clattenburg then went on to change the course of the game by gifting Ronaldo a penalty that should never have been awarded as the winger fell at speed in the Spurs penalty area under an innocuous challenge from Steed Malbranque. TV replays showed that Malbranque had withdrawn his left foot just before Ronaldo sped past him. No contact was made. Ronaldo dived - simple as that.

09.12.2006 - Manchester United 3 Manchester City 1
Bernardo Corradi 's pathetic dive in the closing minutes of a great derby game as he stuck a leg out to fall over John O' Shea's foot in the United penalty area rightly resulted in Corradi's second booking and sending off (after an earlier Drogba-like foul on Vidic earned his first yellow card). Well done Graham Poll for a great pair of decisions. City's manager also deserves credit for owning up to his player's poor behaviour and for refusing to make any excuses.

02.12.2006 - Middlesbrough 1 Manchester United 2
Christiano Ronaldo 'stumbled with momentum' in the Middlesborough penalty area - according to the watching England manager, Steve McClaren - to win a contentious penalty for Manchester United. Middlesborough's rookie manager Gareth Southgate had another view of the incident: "Ronaldo is a cheat, simple as that," he said."How many times are we going to see it? The lad's got a history of doing this.Our goalkeeper has done everything to get out of the way and yet the lad's gone down. Once more. For me, it's never a penalty. I don't know what you can do about it, that's for people better qualified than me. I am not quite sure who the onus is on, but something has to be done because it is happening with that lad too many times. It makes referees' jobs so difficult. I can't comment on the referee's decision because I don't know what his view of it was. He felt from the view he had that there was contact but it is clear for everyone to see that there wasn't." This is a great example of just how difficult it is for the referee to make the correct decision without the help of video replays....McClaren is right that Ronaldo was moving at great speed and even the slightest touch on the player in that situation could lead to a loss of balance and a potential penalty appeal. But Ronaldo was NOT touched at all by Scwarzer. It just happened so damned quickly that the ref missed it, as most of us who were watching in 'real time' also missed it. The honest truth is that incidents like this one will NEVER be picked up without the help of video replays...what has to happen before the authorities come to accept this? For the record, despite Southgate's understandable rant above, Ronaldo has been a reformed character this season. This is the FIRST time he has been accused of diving this term...did he really dive on this occasion or did he 'stumble with momentum' ? Who wants to be the referee? One thing though, Ronaldo DID dive outside the Middlesborough penalty area later in the match to win a free-kick against George Boateng. Let's hope his bad habits are not returning.

04.11.2006 - Manchester United 3 Portsmouth 0
Rooney dives in the second minute to win a penalty that should never have been awarded. Not big. Not clever. Yet it goes almost unreported.

21.10.2006 - Everton 2 Sheffield Utd 0
Falling cunningly, though with less theatricality than perhaps Drogba at his worst, Andy Johnson nevertheless contrived to fool the hapless Demott Gallagher into awarding an Everton penalty against a rightly indignant and about-to-be sent-off Claude Davis. Johnson dived, simple as that. Sheffield United's manager Neil Warnock commented after the game: 'I thought it was a joke. Dermot Gallagher couldn't wait to give it. In fact, I thought he had blown before Johnson had gone down. It's his retirement season. I think he should retire now... I don't blame Johnson for for going down because IF YOU DON'T DIVE TODAY YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING. He realised he wasn't going to get a shot on goal.'

01.10.2006 - Tottenham 2 Portsmouth 1
Didier Zakora dives to win a successfully converted penalty that should never have been awarded against Pedro Mendes who clearly takes his right leg away from any danger. Martin Joll says he "must be honest" and then goes on to say that Zakora was "unbalanced" when he fell. Video replays show that Zakora dived. It's straightforward, mate. He DIVED. So much for 'honesty'.

16.09.2006 - Chelsea 1 Liverpool 0
Arjen Robben makes a bid for the trophy with a spectular dive - even by his standards - in the match against Liverpool

26.08.2006 - Manchester City 1 Arsenal 0
Paul Dickov tried an early dive under a challenge from Djourou.

Premiership's Top Divers So Far

Drogba - 2
Christiano Ronaldo - 2
Dickov - 1
Essien - 1
Arjen Robben - 1
Didier Zakora - 1
Andy Johnson - 1
Wayne Rooney - 1
Bernardo Corradi - 1
Steven Gerrard - 1
Carlos Tevez - 1

Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba

We hope that referees, television pundits, journalists and the paying public alike will come to understand the difference between the styles of play of both Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba.
Even those who never played the game must surely realise that there is a world of difference between a player who runs at defenders at great speed and with a pocket-full of tricks (legal!)and whilst IN POSSESSION OF THE BALL, and a centre forward who has a habit of sometimes falling theatrically when NOT moving at speed, when NOT in possession of a single trick (except illegal, it would seem) and often when NOT IN POSSESSION OF THE BALL ?!
There's a WHOLE WORLD of difference between FLYING at the opposition with the ball at your feet and scrabbling around in the penalty box WAITING for the ball to arrive. With the former it takes only a slight contact to send the winger off balance, and because he is invariably travelling at great speed when he is tripped or nudged, this momentary loss of balance tends to send Ronaldo sprawling. But in the latter case it genuinely takes a determined effort bring a big, comparatively static centre-forward to his knees.
This doesn't mean that Drogba is a bad player or that Ronaldo's perfect. Far from it. Drogba's an extremely effective front man, full of power and menace. And yet there's something about him that rankles with so many of us non partisan observers. We sniff that we don't want a player who we suspect thinks it acceptable behaviour, cool even, to con a penalty out of a referee. Hell, we can't even prove he's up to no good half the time, and yet still the suspicions refuse to die down about him. He's already 'dived' twice this season according to the Daily Mail's excellent new Beat The Cheats initiative.

So Drogba appears to need watching very carefully, especially in tight games with the score at 0-0 and 20 minutes to go. How many times was that the case last season...about one third of Chelsea's games?

Ronaldo too needs watching carefully, but for altogether different reasons.
As Englishmen we might think his behaviour in the World Cup game against England to have been beyond the pale. But it's interesting to note that Rooney himself understands where Ronaldo's coming from and where he comes from.
As a professional, and even though he's still a teen-ager, Rooney understands that in Latin countries Ronaldo's behaviour against England was deemed exemplary! The boy could not have done better! It's just the way 'they' are. What we call cheating, 'they' call gamesmanship. Arsene Wenger's claims that the French do not even have a word for 'cheating'!
Does that not reveal rather a lot about the 'continental' way of thinking?
Is this racist thinking? Is it racist to observe the differences in the way in which different nations approach life itself?
Will the thought police be after me now?
Or am I right but paranoid?
Or maybe I'm a paranoid racist.
The fact is, whatever the reasons, we in Britain approach the game of football - as well as the great game of life - differently than the continentals. We might not like it. Tough. We have to deal with it. Like Roonster did. But it doesn't mean that the beautiful game in England should ever itself succumb to such low levels of gamesmanship or cheating, (depending on which part of the world you come from).
For then it would no longer be a beautiful game.
We might as well join the Serie A.

Our mission here is to help protect the (relative) purity of the game in this country from bullshit of any kind by exposing said bullshit whenever we see or hear it. And we'de like to enlist you on this mission. So if you happen to see a certain Premiership forward diving theatrically or a certain Premiership manager spouting certain bullshit please e-mail your thoughts HERE.
PLEASE HELP KEEP THE BOLLOCKS OUT OF FOOTBALL.