[GiRTh]

Youtube video

Gary Neville with some fascinating insight into diving. What do you all think?

[bbfan1991]

He is spot on!

[bbfan1991]

Phil Dowd confirmed as the Referee for the FA Cup final.

[MTVN]

Neville's a really good pundit actually, I suppose he's right that it's part of the game now to try and win a penalty where possible and very few if any players are innocent of it, it's something that defenders need to be aware of

[Marc]

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by bbfan1991

Phil Dowd confirmed as the Referee for the FA Cup final.

Why are they having **** Referee's be incharge of important matches?

[mrlecturer]

Originally Posted by jedward fever

Why are they having **** Referee's be incharge of important matches?

or howard webb in the semis

[mrlecturer]

Originally Posted by GiRTh

Youtube video

Gary Neville with some fascinating insight into diving. What do you all think?

okay, im glad someone posted this up so i could provide my take on it.

Firstly, as a non-united fan you can point out how defensive he's gotten on this whole Young diving ordeal. I personally found it amusing, cause I don't think he would have carried out this research had it not been for a Newcastle player.

Getting to the actual debate,Neville looks at Young's dive (stepping on Clark's foot), then compares it to Dzeko's. Terrible comparison. There is two major difference between Young's and Dzeko's 'dive,' if you look at them closely. Young is 3-4 feet AWAY from Clark, almost steps on Clark himself, then goes down. Look at Dzeko's against Sunderland. He brings the ball from a wide area, cuts in towards the defender, dragging him on, then shifts to his right. The defender (Gardner) in Dzeko's example steps closer to Dzeko and when he moves to his right, the defender has almost become a screener - blocking Dzeko's run. Because of Dzeko's run to cut in towards the defender, and move out, it forces it contact when the defender is too close to him. You can see on the video, at the point of initial foul, Gardner is in close contact to Dzeko.The SECOND difference being, the amount of contact. As I said, to me, personally, it seems like Young almost steps on Clark (massive in-step) and tumbles. With Dzeko, his foot is trapped behind Gardner's left leg, and because of the intensity of the contact, goes down. Dzeko's was a dive, but MASSIVE contact in comparison to Young's. Im incensed at how Gary Neville could correlate the two VERY VERY different instances.

Moving forward, with the Messi dive. Neville says "Messi dives, and he does it regularly." For me, that was it. That just killed Neville's credibility for me and those who watch Messi. To say that Messi dives regularly is to say Torres has been prolific at Chelsea - excellent punditry Neville. On to the dive, was it a foul? Yes. Penalty? Maybe (50/50). Dive? Yes. He does go down easily, which is uncharacteristic of Messi himself, but there is enough contact that a certain referee would spot at Old Trafford.

Having said that, I agree with Neville that its engrained in football. There isn't a single player who never dives, that's true, because they all want to win. But some of his examples, as a defence-mechanism, to a United player being called a cheat made me laugh

[Locke.]

Big night in the Championship, Reading will be a Premier League team in 2 hours time.

[Mystic Mock]

We are still 0-0 at the moment thank god.

[Mystic Mock]

This guy on Sky Sports News is useless, he just called Robbie Fowler "Robbien"

[Locke.]

Bayern 1-0 Madrid

[mrlecturer]

C'mon bayern!

[bbfan1991]

I like Bayern, although I am tempted to root for Madrid only because CR7 plays for them.

Birmingham, Cardiff and Southampton all leading their games in The Championship so far.

[bbfan1991]

Bayern Munich deserved this 2-1 win, they were the better side.

[Locke.]

Leigertwood !!!!!!!!!!!

[bbfan1991]

Reading are coming back up to the Premier League then.

COME BACK 30 STONE!!

[MTVN]

Well Reading and Southampton top 2 then, I think it's gonna be another season in the Championship for us, always horrible for the 3rd place team to have to settle for playoffs

Pleased Bayern won though, definitely deserved it

[Locke.]

Reading are now a Premier League club

[mrlecturer]

on to Messi now

[Mystic Mock]

Oh well at least we secured a point away from home.

[King Gizzard]

Good old Reading

Don't know if they'll stay up though

[bbfan1991]

Oh well Brum got a draw, hopefully another win should cement a PO place for them and the same for Cardiff too.

Southampton need one more win to secure promotion too!

[King Gizzard]

McDermott looks like a top top bloke. Just read Reading were 16th on November 1st...that coupled with the dissapointment of the playoff final last year, he has done amazing

[King Gizzard]

46 points from 51 as well