Alan Shearer has blasted Liverpool forward Sadio Mane for diving to win a late penalty against Leicester on Saturday.
Liverpool’s 100 per cent start to the Premier League season looked as though it was about to come to an end at Anfield this weekend with the scores level at 1-1 going into stoppage time.
However a late penalty decision that came after Mark Albrighton made contact with Mane led to James Milner scoring a last-gasp winner from the spot.
Newcastle legend Shearer believes that it was a soft penalty and claims that Mane made the most out of contact with Albrighton as it took him a moment to realise he should go down to the ground.
“No, I don’t think it’s a penalty. I think it’s a dive,” said Shearer on BBC One’s Match of the Day on Saturday night.
“It was very, very soft. There was a bit of contact but it’s a contact sport.
“He actually takes a touch and then decides to go down. It’s definitely a delayed reaction.
“There’s the touch there, and then he thinks ‘I’m going to go down’.
“So no, I don’t that was a penalty.”
OPINION
Mane was superb against Leicester. Even Match of the Day host Gary Lineker said the Senegal international was “excellent” in his performance against the Foxes. Mane scored the opening goal, played on both wings, did his defensive duties well and was a constant menace to a Leicester defence that had been just as solid as Liverpool’s back-line before the game, in terms of league goals conceded. It was a tough penalty decision and there was no way it was clear and obvious, which is why VAR didn’t intervene. Albrighton made contact with Mane. Was it enough contact to make the ex-Southampton attacker go down? No, but players don’t always have to go down to the ground for it to be a foul. Mane did go to the ground but he did so on purpose. If Mane didn’t go down, would the referee have given it? Probably not, and that’s what makes this such a tough decision because referees are too quick to award fouls simply because a player has gone down. Referees need to start seeing fouls which do not result in someone hitting the deck, that is something that could cut out diving because Mane must have felt obliged to go down.
