Will Young get any stick?

[Dave]

It's obviously not a good thing, but why is diving any worse than any other sort of cheating?

Defenders are fully expected to pull shirts, barge at corners, clip heels, lean on an attacker just enough to make him lose balance without him falling over...

If defenders are going to cheat, I don't see why the strikers shouldn't and you don't see any sort of moral indignation when someone tugs a shirt on the edge of the area.

To phrase it better without plagiarising:

"In England at least, defenders have somehow created a moral monopoly on cynicism in football. When a defender tugs a player back, happy to take a yellow card in order to stop a promising break, it's described as 'using his experience', or 'being quite clever there', or any one of an array of euphemisms. Never 'cheating', which is what it is. Only forwards are capable of 'cheating', thereby making them a 'disgrace' and prompting calls for all kinds of ridiculous punishments as 'the only way we'll stamp out this blight on our game"

[Ian.]

It's obviously not a good thing, but why is diving any worse than any other sort of cheating?

Defenders are fully expected to pull shirts, barge at corners, clip heels, lean on an attacker just enough to make him lose balance without him falling over...

If defenders are going to cheat, I don't see why the strikers shouldn't and you don't see any sort of moral indignation when someone tugs a shirt on the edge of the area.

To phrase it better without plagiarising:

"In England at least, defenders have somehow created a moral monopoly on cynicism in football. When a defender tugs a player back, happy to take a yellow card in order to stop a promising break, it's described as 'using his experience', or 'being quite clever there', or any one of an array of euphemisms. Never 'cheating', which is what it is. Only forwards are capable of 'cheating', thereby making them a 'disgrace' and prompting calls for all kinds of ridiculous punishments as 'the only way we'll stamp out this blight on our game"

This a very good point.

I must admit I will sometimes take the moral high ground when something has happened against Villa.
Then there has been instants in a game I have played on a Sunday morning  myself and I've done something like pulled shirts, slyly blocked a off the ball runners run and generally anything you can get away with.

It has been going on for years really, we just get more cameras to spot it.

[supertom]

I dislike Ashley Young with a passion. In all honesty I didn't like him much in his last couple of seasons here. He annoyed the hell out of me. It's just diving. It pisses me off. I respect some people call it playing the game and winning your team FK's and PK's is good, but so, so often he'd run into good positions for us and instead of stay on his feet and try and get an extra 2-3 yards for a chance on goal, he'd fall to the ground and wait for a refs whistle. One of my enduring memories of Ash is Everton. Sadly one of my other enduring memories is him sat on his arse with his arms in the air looking at the ref, whilst the opposition counter attacks us. Plus he always struck me as a billy big bollocks somewhat.

If not for all his falling over and fannying about, I truly believe he'd have hit 12-15 goals a season for us.
In 2007-08 when he was absolutely brilliant and was in the PFA team of the season, he didn't dive much and had I believe the most assists (or close to) in the league. He was sensational and he didn't dive. I liked that he stayed on his feet and ran at people. He was a winger who could cross left foot, right, take people on, deliver exceptional set pieces. Every passing season after that he became a little less effective each year. A little less confident in running at people. His delivery ever more erratic. For me, he was poor for us last season, particularly in comparison to the last 2-3 years. In part playing in the hole didn't help nor under Houlliers poor side.

I just don't see the skill in what he did to us on sunday, and against Wigan. It's pathetic and it ruins games as a spectacle when players do crap like that. I actually don't miss Young playing for us anymore. At least not the Young of 1-2 years ago. I do miss the Ash of 3-4 years ago however. When you're in the final 3rd and you need to keep the football and keep possession, it's so annoying watching a player fall easily and then often not get the freekick. Refs became a little wise to Ash for us. I do think however he gets away with it more because he's at Utd and gets more freekicks because too many refs favour the bigger clubs.

By the same token though, he pays the price of doing at Utd, because there he gets a name for himself. He didn't have a really big reputation for being a diver when he was here. A few may have picked on it, but not the majority. We all noticed it of course. At Utd though it's suddenly very much back page and in the forefront of discussion right now.