Dyche - ban blatant cheats

Clarets boss Sean Dyche was vocal in his dismay at some of the simulation on display in the Premier League last season.
21/07/15 PRE-SEASON FRIENDLY
RANGERS V BURNLEY
IBROX - GLASGOW
Burnley manager Sean Dyche in the dugout.21/07/15 PRE-SEASON FRIENDLY
RANGERS V BURNLEY
IBROX - GLASGOW
Burnley manager Sean Dyche in the dugout.
21/07/15 PRE-SEASON FRIENDLY RANGERS V BURNLEY IBROX - GLASGOW Burnley manager Sean Dyche in the dugout.

And he has expressed his satisfaction that the FA are to clamp down on diving with the threat of a three-match ban introduced for the new season.

Dyche caused a stir last season when he revealed a top flight manager told him to “move with the times”, the Burnley chief admitting his team were “naive at times, in the right way.”

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Speaking about the new directives, Dyche said: “As an ex centre half I could never work out why when you’re running through on goal and the centre half pulls you and gets sent off, but you’re running through on goal and aren’t touched but you go down and nothing happens.

“It can’t be one rule for one and one rule for another.

“Gamesmanship is different to cheating.

“If you touch someone in the box and they go down, then those are the rules of the game.

“But when it’s blatant cheating...ban. Simple as that.”

It has spread to grass roots football from the professional game, the role models, and Dyche mused: “It’s terrible for kids to watch.

“My son’s 12 and I see him playing with kids diving at 10/11/12 and that cannot be right.

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“Under the fundamental rules of bringing up kids let alone in sport that cannot be right.

“I refuse to believe that could and should be accepted.”

He couldn’t look himself in the face if his players lowered themselves to that level, as he recalled his conversation last season: “I did have a manager say ‘you’ll be left behind’.

“I said ‘Well, I’ve got to look myself in the mirror and my team in the face and know that we play at least within the gamesmanship side of things.

“I’m not making out that we’re whiter than white, but I think our team operate in a good manner and a fair manner.

“At times, I will say too fair.”

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That “naivety” led Ruud Gullit to criticise Sam Vokes for not going to ground having been pulled down by Neil Taylor in a 1-0 defeat at home to Swansea, and Dyche was inclined to agree: “Vokesy got pulled down in the box, we don’t get a penalty - Ruud Gullit on TV said ‘why on earth hasn’t he gone down?

“He was kind of right, because too honest is silly, he should have gone down and it would have been a penalty.

“On the other hand, why didn’t the referee give a penalty? If it’s a penalty, it’s a penalty.

“I’ll certainly not be coaching that into people, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror.

“It’s not my preferred way of working.

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“If someone pulls your shirt and you go down, that’s a penalty, but the other one is that fake head butt thing where people dive on the floor, what is that all about? It’s just your own self-respect.”

He added: “If people are going to look at it, it’s for the good of the game. I’m not preaching, but when little kids are simulating in an Under 10s match, I can’t see that as being good for the game.

“The people they watch are usually in the Premier League or Championship, and if they want to step in and do something, that’s a good thing.

“I think you’ll find it dies out super quick - managers won’t want to lose their best players.

“It could affect teams at elite level.

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“Last year I saw centre halves diving. I nearly ran on the pitch and said ‘what are you doing?!’

“I haven’t had to deal with it, but if you got one going down all the time, there’s got to be education, I don’t think fining them makes a difference.”