Play-acting is becoming a real worry

Jan 4 2008 by Peter Beardsley, The Journal

ABDOULAYE Faye disappointed me during Wednesday’s Premier League fixture at St James’s Park.

I’m not talking about his general performance in the Newcastle midfield. It was Faye’s over-reaction following Elano’s crude first-half challenge that left me so perturbed.

I’m not condoning the tackle. It was a bad one, a poor one, one that deserved the caution that it received. But Faye’s response concerned me just as much. He didn’t need to roll over and over and over like he did. He must have rolled over at least three times. He rolled so far that he almost ended up in the dug-out. Then he got up.

Faye wasn’t hurt. You could tell that because as soon as Elano had been booked, he stood up, came back on the pitch and started running around again. The pain couldn’t have been that bad for him to have done that, could it?

I’ll stress again, it was a foul and a bad one at that. But I don’t think it warranted a red card. That would have been wrong. Elano is not a tackler and it was a typical forward’s challenge.

I don’t feel that there was any malice in it, but that doesn’t seem to matter these days. Players pile in and start pushing and shoving and the original incident begins to seem worse than it was. I spoke to David Mills about it at half-time. We agreed that when we were playing, such a tackle would have been normal – you would have picked yourself up and got on with it. But not these days. Not in the Premier League.

It wasn’t just Faye. Vedran Corluka kept throwing himself to the ground every time an opponent went near him. He’s a good player, he has proved as much. But that could soon be overlooked if he continues to keep going down as though he has been shot.

Play-acting has become a big problem in the Premier League. There is much talk about stamping out two-footed challenges, but for me this is an issue that is just as serious.

I’m not condoning the tackle, it was a bad one ... but Faye’s response concerned me just as much