Darren Bent has criticised Luke Ayling following Leeds United's defeat to Leicester City.
The Whites defender went to ground in the penalty area under a tackle from Christian Fuchs with the score at 2-1 to Leicester.
Yet replays subsequently showed Fuchs had not touched Ayling, who appeared to go to the floor anticipating contact from the Leicester defender.
The referee waved play on and Ayling did not appeal for the spot-kick. Speaking on talkSPORT, Bent was very critical of Ayling's anticipation of contact.
He said: "The Ayling one was embarrassing. I know he thinks the contact is coming, but come on.
"Even if he gets the ball first, he might even go round the defender and clip it into the box, but the fact he's expecting the contact and gone down, you can even tell by his own reaction he knew it wasn't a penalty.
"He got up a little bit embarrassed because it should be a booking. It's a form of cheating."
In a weekend that saw plenty of debate over what constitutes a foul and a penalty, Bent said he felt Ayling's attempts to win a penalty went too far.
"If it's a foul, it's a foul. Look at someone like Jack Grealish, who wins more fouls than anybody.
"I'm sure a lot of them are fouls as people are frustrated he keeps kicking these fouls so eventually someone's going to leave one on him.
"I wouldn't say it's necessarily cheating, as if there is contact and it's a foul then fair enough.
"I think little niggles, I don't think you can call that cheating, but what we saw from Luke Ayling, that is, as there's literally no contact whatsoever and he's gone down.
"With the Mo Salah one, I think it's a foul as he's kicked the back of his foot, but I didn't like his reaction where he went down like he'd been shot."
