Burnley manager Sean Dyche has criticized Arsenal players for cheating and diving.
Burnley went down 3-1 at the Emirates as their campaign hit another hurdle and Dyche was less impressed by the Gunners who he says went down too easy and were rewarded by free kicks when it should not have been the case.
“We’re on about blatant, no touch, no contact; about phantom touches and people just jumping up in the air and going over. The absolute cheating, dives.
No one seems to want to do anything about it, apart from me. If one of their players had been booked for it – he would have been off [Guendouzi was already on a yellow card]. Even at the end, [Matej] Vydra goes through and touches Xhaka marginally on his shoulder and Xhaka goes down and gets a free-kick. It’s centre-halves now – going down after hardly anything. Incredible.” Dyche told The Guardian.
“Kids are watching and copying it. Millions of children. You wouldn’t ruffle your kids’ hair if they came home after school and cheated in a maths test.
But they cheat at a game of football and it’s OK. The game needs to have a look at itself. It was incredibly bad in the World Cup.” Dyche added.
The boss felt that such antics should be severely punished in order to send a clear message to players with the intent of doing the same.
“I want to see people banned because if they were, it would evaporate. I’m not talking about gamesmanship. You clip a centre-forward in the box and he goes down. End of story. I’m talking about blatant diving. Cheating.” Dyche decried.