Steve Davis agrees with Tony Pulis over players fooling officials

Steve Davis says he agrees with the Stoke City manager Tony Pulis that players who dive to win a penalty should be punished with a ban. The Alex boss was left fuming after Portsmouth Wes Thomas theatrically went over Andy Bond’s standing foot to win a decisive penalty in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Fratton Park. Davis described the moment as the ultimate ‘game-changer’ and was disappointed by both the player and the officials in getting the decision wrong.

Steve told the club’s official web-site: “I’ve watched the penalty incident on a few occasions and you can clearly see that Andy (Bond) never touched him. He did stretch out his foot at first but then planted it and the player has just gone over his leg. He dived to the win the penalty and that is what annoyed me and our players.

“What also annoyed me was the position of the referee. From where he was he couldn’t have seen it clearly, so he has just guessed and it changed the game. We were 1-0 down at the time and although it was still difficult to get back into the game against a decent side, it made it doubly hard at 2-0.

“I am sure the debate will rumble on, like goal-line technology. It will go on-and-on until there is a severe punishment introduced. Until you have a ban in place for diving, then you will have managers coming out after every game complaining about it.

Steve added: “I agree with Tony (Pulis) if a player is sent-off for diving or is banned after viewing video evidence then that would be a step in the right direction to stamping it out for good.”