Today’s Premier League action saw Newcastle move six points clear of the drop zone and West Ham – against all expectations at the start of the season – move into the top four. Arsenal also crushed Sheffield United, and in doing so move the Blades to the brink of mathematical relegation.
It was, in short, a busy day in the Premier League. Sadly, however, none of that is the big talking point of the day. That honour goes to Spurs forward Son Heung-Min for his embarrassing theatrics in his side’s 3-1 loss to Manchester United.
Actually, I’m mincing my words here. Sorry about that. I’ll call a spade a spade from here on out.
Son took the headlines for diving.
What occurred was as follows:
Scott McTominay ran past Son and brushed the forward’s face with his hand as he did so (as seen above).
Son let out an impressive scream and fell to the ground.
Son rolled around in apparent agony for three minutes.
The goal that United had subsequently scored was disallowed.
Son got up immediately and continued playing with no ill effects whatsoever.
There was a post-match spat between the managers of the two sides, in which Spurs gaffer Jose Mourinho said of Solskjaer: “Sonny is very lucky that his father is a better person than Ole”
I, though, am one hundred percent with Solskjaer on this one. He said: “I am amazed and shocked if that is a foul, especially if it takes him three minutes to get up from that. I always use the analogy that if that was my son and he gets that from one of his mates, and he stays down and needs ten other mates to help him up three minutes after, he’s not going to get food for a few days because that is embarrassing.”
Ole; you are bang on.
But this is only a talking point at all for one reason: the referee. It was only the utter feeble-mindedness of Chris Kavanaugh that allowed this to become an issue, as he bent to the will of the VAR pixel-measurers. Awful stuff. As Ole (my boy again here) put it: “Unfortunately, the referee decided that we are not playing football.”
And there is something even more telling: Jose’s reaction to the incident. Or, rather, his complete avoidance of questions about it. When asked whether he thought it was a foul he dodged the question, launching into a sermon about VAR and how because of it “I don’t understand anything anymore.” This was in reference to the events of the two previous days, when Liverpool and Wolves had goals ruled out for invisible offsides. This sermon was justified, but not particularly relevant.
But yeah, you know dive is blatant when even your manager won’t stick up for you. They’ll usually defend anything.
It was embarrassing stuff from Son.
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