The Premier League's five worst divers have been ranked, crowning English football's most devious simulator in No 1 spot.
Diving has been a hot topic in the Premier League, particularly this past weekend. First Mohamed Salah was accused of theatrics to win a penalty against West Ham (which bizarrely saw him accused of insulting the memory of Nobby Stiles).
Then on Sunday, Harry Kane was criticised for earning a sneaky penalty against Brighton by backing into Adam Lallana, then falling to the deck.
Both players feature in the league's top five of divers, selected late last year by talkSPORT host Adrian Durham. Which in light of Salah and Kane's actions this past weekend, clearly proves Durham is flawlessly correct in his opinions about everything [citation needed].
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As per GiveMeSport, these are Durham's views and rankings of the Prem's slyest of hounds.
5. Jamie Vardy
"We all know he has a habit of winning penalties," said Durham of Leicester City's 2019/20 Golden Boot winner. "Some would call it being clever, others call it blatant diving.
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"Doesn't stop me loving him as a footballer, but Jamie Vardy is number five."
4. Ashley Barnes
Durham took aim at Barnes and his manager as he made this fourth-spot pick, claiming the gravelly voiced Burnley boss gives his striker a free pass.
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"It's slightly hypocritical of Sean Dyche to go on this diving campaign," said Durham. "It's all very admirable, but he needs to look a bit closer to home first."
3. Mohamed Salah
Either feeling that he didn't want to enrage Liverpool supporters by going into excessive detail - or simply because he felt Salah's body of work spoke for itself - Durham kept this assessment short and sharp.
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"I don't really need to say any more. He's my number three," he grunted.
2. Wilfried Zaha
"Crystal Palace fans won't like it, but we deal with truths here. The number of yellow cards says it all," said Durham, referring to the four Premier League bookings Zaha has picked up since 2015 for simulation (more than any other player).
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"Sometimes he's unfairly picked on but there's no doubt in his career he's definitely gone down easily on a number of occasions."
1. Harry Kane
In top spot, Durham does at least shows he's immune to the tedious 'blame foreign players' attitude to diving by picking another English player. In fact, it's the England captain, no less.
"He does it well too often and he's so clever with it, he gets away with it more often than not," said Durham of the Tottenham No 10.
"He's been booked for diving on at least two occasions and he's lucky it's not more."
Do you agree with the talkSPORT presenter's top five? Or are there more notorious divers sorely missing from this list? Let us know in the comments.
All imagery: PA Images
Featured Image Credit:Topics: jamie vardy, Football News, Football, Wilfried Zaha, Premier League, Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane
