Robben Describes His Dives As Being ‘Silly Things’

Bayern Munich`s Arjen Robben has told Arsene Wenger he expected “more” from the Arsenal manager after the Frenchman called him out for diving.

The Dutch cheat took two dives in the game last night, one of them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was a dive. No contact. It was cast-iron cheating. There is nothing anyone can say that could change that truth. It was a blatant dive as I`ve ever seen.

Probably in the top 3 dives of all time.

Wenger said after the game ‘Robben is very good at getting the maximum of nothing and he is a great player and as well a very good diver, but it is part of it.

‘He is a fantastic player, I would not deny that, he’s one of the best players in the world. But he gets in front of a player and then he slows down and goes down. He gets the free-kicks.”

‘That’s where we spoke about yesterday that the referee, if he gives him a yellow card on the first one when he goes down, he will not do it again.’

Typically, being the hideous beast that he is, Robben referred to his dives as being “silly things”, suggesting that having lost the game Arsene Wenger should just be quiet.

‘I always say if you are a big manager then take your loss.
‘If you win be happy, but don’t start complaining about silly things. From a big manager you expect a little bit more. It was two penalties.’

The penalty in the first game was debateable; the penalty awarded last night was never a penalty in a million years. We need to get away from this Sky Sports induced theory that if there was contact it must be a penalty.

No!

Football is a contact sport and unless the contact is sufficient to gain an advantage then it`s not a penalty. If you have to force yourself to fall on the floor, which Robben clearly did, then it`s not a foul and it`s not a penalty.

The dive for which he wasn`t even booked was a disgrace, and should be met with a ban. Eduardo was the subject of a witch hunt a few years ago with people demanding retrospective bans and calls for the game to be replayed despite the fact that the ‘dive’ wasn`t even a certain dive. I felt it was a dive at the time, but there could have been arguments made for the foul. It wasn’t black and white. Unlike Robben’s.

Until cases of blatant diving, of which there can be no question, are punished by the governing bodies, players will continue to push the envelope and hit the ground with the merest touch.

If Robben, one of the game’s biggest perpetrators of diving, sees this cheating as being just a ‘silly thing’ rather than a hideous con of his fellow professional then he’s going to keep on doing it until he’s made well aware that this behaviour is unacceptable.