"Mango's Mouth"

Absolutely disgraceful decision by UEFA to let this cheating diver off the hook today and then the player has the gall to go on the BBC website and say:

"I'm very pleased that we have finally arrived at the truth," said Eduardo in a statement on the Arsenal website.

"All we needed to do was to prove what happened and we have managed to do that. This decision makes me feel a lot better. "I just want to say that I am a fair player. To score goals you must take your opportunities and I'm not the type of player who needs to be dishonest to score goals."

ABSOLUTE BALONEY. The man is a diver & UEFA's decision merely gives the wrong signals because now players can dive and they know UEFA will do NOTHING. Arsenal fans who feel he was "harshly" treated can now get ready for the first diving incident AGAINST them in the Champions League because that is where most of the divers are - in Europe.

Then we'll see Arsene Wenger go off on one when the boot's on the other foot.........

I have watched this incident so many times and I'll be honest and say, I would err on the side of caution here. I think the ref was wrong to give a penalty, although there was minimal contact - look at the picture - the keeper's hand looks to be on his foot. At the same time, I don't think he 'dived' in the way you normally say. He went down under contact because of his momentum. I know many would disagree, but I think the ref should have done nothing. Not a penalty and not a dive.

Its all very well to slam EUFA over this but what would their agenda be? They took action and then had a re-think and have decided that they were wrong. Eduardo was the victim of an horrendous tackle last season, which should have been a red card and a ban, and what Manu did on Sunday was probably far worse.

It will be interesting to see what EUFA do about that.

But I do think that what is happening in the game today is a complete over-reaction to anything. The press make BIG things of every little incident, but cast your mind back to the 1970s when the game really was hard, and so many things were then allowed to pass as part of the game. Chopper Harris and Billy Bremner and Dave MacKay would have made mincemeat of many of today's players.

Tackles?? You don't know the meaning of the word

Fair comment, Bob, and yes, there was very minimal contact, but in my view, he still went down far too easily. You should have heard Stan Colleymore on Talksport last night. He was absolutely livid about UEFA's actions & even some of the Arsenal fans who rang in to discuss it with him admitted they were embarrassed by it all as well. Stan may have been many things in his time as a top pro, but he was never a diver & he's therefore appalled at this aspect of our game which has increasingly become part of normal fashion in the game in more recent years.

UEFA have taken the easy option here by saying there was a case for doubt because of the minimal contact aspect. Now that the Champions League is about to get under way again, we await the next similar incident to be scrutinised by 45 different camera angles before it ends up on UEFA's desk.......

As for Chopper Harris & Co, I think I said i another thread somewhere recently that he was on a recent documentary called "Football - The Glory Years", hosted by Rodney Marsh, and Chopper admitted that he wouldn't last 2 minutes in today's game. Too many red cards!!

Guys,I can see both sides of the argument but my take on all this is you have to let the match officials decide at the time and have the final say. Just how far is all this going to go unless the refs word is final? As well as video evidence,there is an appeal and if that fails no doubt it will go to the European Court of Yuman Rites! Arse had a forensic expert examining the video frame by frame for their appeal. Soon this procedure will be followed by getting the Old Bill involved and even training up another Columbo to get on the case! We have to trust the decisions of the match officials or this will become a farce. Of course they will get it wrong from time to time but it has always been that way in football. I can't see any other way round it. The divers are a lot more cunning these days and the refs have a difficult job. It is a sad fact that there is so much money at stake the price of failure is leading to dubious methods in protecting this vast income. The diving subject was hot in the Klinsmann era and I remember he used to do a few twirls which would have won him points on Strictly,he would then go down like he had been shot by a sniper! The Eduardo incident wasn't so clear cut and only he really knows the truth. The ref gave the penalty so his decision must be respected that he thought there was contact. If there was it looked minimal and Eduardo didn't help by "Mincing" when he went down. Who would be a ref in todays game eh?

Good points by Stella, and by Bob previously, and I was willing to meet you half way on this one - but then I hear that The Cheat has just scored the winner for Arsenal in Belgium tonight & I simply find myself going back to my original posting again......because should he have even been on the pitch in the first place??

It just had to be in the script that he would score the winner! Think this subject will rumble on for a while yet and it will be interesting how future diving incidents will pan out. Another thing I forgot to mention Dave was the fact that the reputation of Eduardo just may have helped England last week against Croatia. I refer to that cert penalty the Croats should have been given when Johnson had his arms all over Eduardo when that cross came in early in the second half. I have seen less manhandling when a suspect is bundled in the back of a police riot van! Maybe a lot of refs are not amused with Eduardo at present and will do an Arsene Wenger when it comes to cert penalties involving him and say "I didn't see it"!

Absolutely agree, Stella. Eduardo was defintely flattened at Wembley in the box and had Croatia correctly got a penalty & scored, then it would have been only 2-1 to us & who knows what would have happened after that. We will never know if the officials got cold feet on that one because of Eduardo's most recent history...........