MANCHESTER: Manchester United manager David Moyes has warned his own player Ashley Young to stop diving but said on Monday he could not guarantee the winger would change his ways.
England international Young was booked for tumbling over after a challenge by Crystal Palace’s Kagisho Dikgacoi in United’s 2-0 win at Old Trafford in the Premier League on Saturday.
Later in the first half, the referee awarded the home side a penalty and sent off Dikgacoi after the pair clashed again, although replays suggested Young had fallen easily under minimal challenge.
The London club’s chairman Steve Parish said Young should have been sent off, while Moyes said he had spoken to the winger over the matter and reiterated his long-held view that there should be retrospective action for diving to clamp down on it.
“You can never be sure it won’t happen again, but I’ve had a word with him privately,” Moyes told a news conference on the eve of United’s Champions League Group A opener at home to Bayer Leverkusen.
“I’ve said for many years… we should have retrospective video for diving, I think it would help referees no end.”
It will come as little comfort to Parish that even Moyes was unhappy with his own player over diving.
“(We) need to get some momentum behind a straight red for a dive,” Parish told the BBC on Sunday.
Former EPL referee Graham Poll, writing in his column in a newspaper, accused Young of cheating.
“He should be banned for five games, then he might stop diving to try and con referees,” he said. (Reuters)