Sean Dyche unleashed a furious diatribe about cheating in the modern game after being incensed at what he felt were a series of dives by Arsenal’s players. The Burnley manager, whose team lost 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium, mentioned Mesut Özil and Granit Xhaka as being among the culprits while he also suggested Mattéo Guendouzi had been guilty.
“We’re on about blatant, no touch, no contact; about phantom touches and people just jumping up in the air and going over,” Dyche said. “The absolute cheating, dives. No one seems to want to do anything about it, apart from me. If one of their players had been booked for it – he would have been off [Guendouzi was already on a yellow card].
“Even at the end, [Matej] Vydra goes through and touches Xhaka marginally on his shoulder and Xhaka goes down and gets a free-kick. It’s centre-halves now – going down after hardly anything. Incredible.
“Kids are watching and copying it. Millions of children. You wouldn’t ruffle your kids’ hair if they came home after school and cheated in a maths test. But they cheat at a game of football and it’s OK. The game needs to have a look at itself. It was incredibly bad in the World Cup.
“I want to see people banned because if they were, it would evaporate. I’m not talking about gamesmanship. You clip a centre-forward in the box and he goes down. End of story. I’m talking about blatant diving. Cheating.”
Dyche had a brusque exchange with Unai Emery after full time. The Burnley manager was asked if his Arsenal counterpart had been upset about diving. “Of course he wasn’t – it was his players, not mine,” Dyche said. “He just said: ‘You are questioning the referee?’ And I said: ‘You’re absolutely right I was. All the best. Have a good Christmas.’”
