Troy Deeney says professional players have no problems with players seemingly diving to get penalties like Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah allegedly did last week.
Kane was awarded a penalty after he backed into Adam Lallana and the former Liverpool man was adjudged to have fouled him.
Salah was awarded a penalty when he had the minimal contact with Arthur Masuaku in Liverpool’s last Premier League game.
Some fans have been outraged by the soft nature of both calls, but Deeney says players don’t think so much about it being cheating.
He claimed that when a penalty of that nature is awarded one can see that the offending player simply walks away after maybe shrugging their shoulders.
He claimed that VAR has even made it easier to think that the player was truly fouled because looking at some of those fouls via slow-motion will make the offender culpable.
He wrote on Sun Sports: “Two of the Premier League’s finest players — Mo Salah and Harry Kane — were accused of winning penalties with a lack of total honesty last weekend.
“But if you really think that professional footballers were looking at those incidents and saying, ‘It’s embarrassing, it’s got to stop’ then you’re sadly mistaken.
“No one in the game is outraged. No one thinks it’s anything like an athlete doping in the 100 metres.
“It’s our job to win games of football. To do whatever it takes, to gain any advantage.
“If there is any sort of contact from a defender in the penalty box, then it is perfectly acceptable to go down.
“Even the opposition will not seriously complain.
“You see someone go down, and a penalty awarded, and there will be a shrug of the shoulder from the attacking player and a knowing look from the defender as if to say ‘yeah, it’s part and parcel of the game’.”