The mass introduction of foreign players has brought with it the childish acts of silly footballers. Everyone is at the cartoon knocked-down nonsense we saw displayed by Nani against West Ham.
'Rooney may hassle the ref a fair amount but when he takes a crunching tackle he invariably gets up and gets on with it'
I'm quite sure a number of people would gladly crticise Cristiano Ronaldo as being the cheekiest cheat in the Premier League.
Nani, of course, made an utter fool of himself at the weekend, almost equal to the scale of Rivaldo's idiocy at the World Cup.
The fact of the matter is that many footballers are acting in this undignified manner in an attempt to cheat the already bemused referees. It's not solely in Britain where this happens and it was a trait of foreigners for decades which really got to the British teams playing in Europe.
Even now the majority of British players are decent and honest professionals who would not use such underhand tactics in an attempt to gain an advantage for their team and country (just look at Ronaldo's bust-up with Wayne Rooney at the last World Cup).
But British players are becoming just as cute on the field, and why not? It's now part and parcel of the game and we, the supporters have to put up with it. We berate opposition players when they do it and defend our own saying that it's tit-for-tat.
Ronaldo is the kind of player that when winning, prances around winding up the opposition with trickery and showboating. If he really does not expect a red-blooded male in a professional match not to get wound up and just applaud his cheek in making that particular player look a fool in front of thousands of spectators and millions across the globe on television then he needs to grow up a bit.
It's not the showboating i have a problem with, it's the reaction to having been fouled like the flashing of the hands in a mock yellow or red-card manner. Players like Theo Walcott, through sheer pace, invite late tackles yet I'm sure Arsene Wenger has it drummed into him not to start childish acts of fake carding opponents. Didier Drogba, not in Rafa Benitez's best books, is a good example of someone who plays every trick in the book but does not always retort in a churlish manner.
Rooney may hassle the ref a fair amount but when he takes a crunching tackle he invariably gets up and gets on with it.
There are still a number of foreign players who get too easily caught up in the frenetic nature of the Premier League, players like Fernando Torres and Obafemi Martins just get on with it and have adapted well.
People single out Ronaldo because he is a great player who is having a remarkable season. Manchester United are despised up and down the country because they are successful. Mind you they have always been pretty despised and their failure to capture the English title for many years made them easy pickings, especially for Liverpool fans.
The fact that Sir Alex Ferguson came along and turned them into what they are today has made the hatred even more intense.
Manchester Utd are the highest profile club in the world and will always receive the major share of back-page headlines. Nani's talent is undoubtedly there but after that incident he has shown himself to be rather silly. It was really embarrassing to watch a grown man act like an eight-year-old who knows hw has done wrong. He has acted like a complete idiot and will have to live with the barracking he is currently taking.
It will happen again and again but Nani can concentrate on what he does best, play some football.
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