Sheffield United: Manager identifies simple solution to cheating problem
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Like many people within football, he believes players will inevitably stretch their game’s laws to their absolute limits in order to try and gain an advantage.
But the Sheffield United manager is convinced that some of its darker arts, including diving and feigning injury, need to be stamped out and stamped out fast. The only trouble is, despite arguing it would be simple to banish them from the sport, Heckingbottom fears the necessary steps will not be taken until those in charge of deciding how matches are governed reflect upon the effectiveness of the directives they recently handed to officials. And that, he conceded ahead of tomorrow’s visit to West Bromwich Albion, is unlikely to happen until the end of the season.
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Hide Ad“I’m seeing blatant dives every week and absolutely nothing is happening,” Heckingbottom told The Star at United’s training complex earlier this week. “You see it in real time and you can definitely see them on television replays; they’re going over and there’s no contact whatsoever. They’ve not even been touched. How difficult is it to deal with? It should be easy. Punish them retrospectively. Give them a three match ban. Simple.”
“But it seems there’s nothing we can do,” he added. “Because that’s not getting done. I don’t think it will until the summer either, when everyone gets a chance to sit down and take a look at what’s been going on.”
To his credit, Heckingbottom has been outspoken on a subject many of his counterparts choose to ignore since the beginning of the campaign. Speaking before last weekend’s draw with Norwich City, a match memorable for United’s comeback from two goals down but also the opposition’s theatrics, the 44-year-old described a recent meeting with referee’s chief Kevin Friend as “really useful” and “constructive” in helping him understand why “some calls”, particularly those relating to deliberate time-wasting, “are made.”
However, although Heckingbottom has welcomed the willingness of officials not to intervene for every minor foul, he is concerned that diving is not afforded the same gravitas as other behaviour which oversteps the mark.
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Hide Ad“You see lads getting done if they’ve trod on someone and it was missed after the event,” Heckingbottom continued. “So why not the same with diving? It’s great that they’re letting some of the little niggly things go more now, allowing that physicality to come back which was being lost.
“But we’re still seeing shirt-pulling and diving and cheating and nothing gets done.”
United prepared for the trip to The Hawthorns ranked fifth in the Championship, despite failing to win any of their outings since last month’s international break. Albion are 23rd but will be hoping Carlos Corberan’s appointment has a positive effect upon their campaign. The former Huddersfield Town and Olympiacos head coach was unveiled as Steve Bruce’s successor earlier this week.
In the interests of balance, Heckingbottom conceded some members of his own squad are not averse to trying to trick referees in order to get themselves out of difficult situations. But he stressed United do not make a point of encouraging their players to try and con referees; a comment which suggests some of their rivals take a different approach.
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Hide Ad“I don’t blame the refs because they’re not deliberately making mistakes or favouring certain teams, no way,” he said. “Sometimes you see defenders get themselves into trouble, facing their own goal, and they go over easily to get the free-kick. I’ve seen a couple of our ones do it. But really, it shouldn’t be given. Fair play, Darren Bond who oversaw our game at Swansea a while back wasn’t giving those. And that’s great too. But you also see centre-forwards getting smashed and nothing’s done. There’s got to be a balance to this and the other stuff needs to be taken more seriously.”
Earlier this term, Heckingbottom asked United’s analysts to investigate how many minutes were being lost during fixtures due to procrastination over set-pieces and other re-start situations. Their findings, which were presented to Friend during his trip to the club’s training complex, made startling reading with more than half-an-hour being lost during one recent contest at Bramall Lane.
“It’s not something we do here,” he continued. “We try and force it. Okay, of course there are going to be times when you’re not going to be in a rush or you try to break things up a bit. I get that. I understand that. That’s why gamesmanship isn’t necessarily cheating. But there’s some stuff that is, because it’s just ridiculous.”
City’s Dean Smith admitted he urged United’s bench to “deal with your own players and I’ll deal with mine” during an exchange of words between the two sets of staff midway through last Saturday’s contest, which saw goals from Ben Osborn and Oli McBurnie cancel-out Teemu Pukki’s brace.
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Hide AdJosh Smith, who oversaw the game, is believed to have mentioned the fact he was surrounded by players following a number of controversial calls in his post-match report although it remains unclear if any further action will be taken.
United goalkeeper Wes Foderingham will sit out the meeting with Corberan’s men as he completes a suspension handed down following his red card after the final whistle of another United draw, this time against Blackp oo l, seven days earlier. Both teams were later charged by the FA for failing to control their players during the melee which broke out as they left the pitch.
“We’ve got to take care of this, the diving and other stuff, through the EFL as a whole,” said Heckingbottom. “That’s how it stops, through everyone getting together and deciding to put a stop to it.”