Mohamed Salah has found an “added ruthlessness” to his game but has “crossed the line” when it comes to diving, believes Tony Cascarino.<\/p>\n
The Liverpool forward made the headlines for a number of reasons during the Reds’ 4-3 victory over Crystal Palace in a game where he scored two goals.<\/p>\n
His brace also brought up 50 Premier League goals in 72 appearances – making Salah the joint-fourth quickest player to achieve that feat.<\/p>\n
However, his efforts were somewhat marred by his attempts to win a penalty in the first-half of the game in an incident that saw Salah throw himself to the ground in the box after barely being touched by Eagles defender Mamadou Sakho.<\/p>\n
It attracted a great deal of criticism from opposition supporters and Liverpool fan Cascarino was disappointed in Salah’s actions but admitted the Egyptian may have developed a win-at-all-costs attitude as Liverpool are one of the favourites to win the Premier League this season.<\/p>\n
Writing in The Times, Cascarino said: “Mohamed Salah is an excellent player whom I love to watch.<\/p>\n
“Last season I not only admired his skill and goals but also what a hardworking and honest professional he seemed to be.<\/p>\n
“This season he seems to be a different player \u2014 the goals and quality are still there but he has crossed the line when it comes to his diving.<\/p>\n
“There have been a few contentious incidents with Salah winning penalties this season but on Saturday, in Liverpool\u2019s win against Palace, he blatantly dived in the penalty area.<\/p>\n
“It seems as though there is an added ruthlessness in his game, which is why he is crossing into doing whatever it takes to win games.<\/p>\n
“Perhaps it stems from the pressure that Liverpool\u00a0players potentially feel in terms of winning a trophy this season and if so, Salah certainly won\u2019t be the first star name willing to cheat to gain an advantage.<\/p>\n
“Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s willingness to go to ground easily in the area only increased as his career progressed.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m sure Liverpool fans won\u2019t care but it does leave a sour taste.<\/p>\n
Salah will not face retrospective action because he failed to convince referee Jonathan Moss into giving him a penalty but Cascarino suggested incidents like these should prompt the powers that be to consider changing the rules with regards to retrospective action.<\/p>\n
Cascarino added: “Another thing that the Salah dive highlights is a need for a rethink on retrospective punishment. Just because he didn\u2019t successfully con the referee, that doesn\u2019t mean he shouldn\u2019t be punished for trying to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mohamed Salah has found an “added ruthlessness” to his game but has “crossed the line” when it comes to diving, believes Tony Cascarino. The Liverpool forward made the headlines for a number of reasons during the Reds’ 4-3 victory over Crystal Palace in a game where he scored two goals. His brace also brought up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}