‘Cheating’: Danny Murphy slams Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Liverpool’s Mo Salah for penalty claims

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Former Spurs and England midfielder, Danny Murphy, has slammed the likes of Harry Kane and Mo Salah for ‘manipulating’ referees into awarding penalties.

Kane and Salah were once again under the microscope this past weekend as both won and then converted controversial penalties. Both strikes ending up being important in 2-1 wins.

The Tottenham skipper’s, in particular, caught attention. Some fans and pundits claimed it wasn’t even a foul by Adam Lallana, while others accepted Kane had just been smart in conning Lallana into knocking him over.

But Murphy, who was speaking to Talksport yesterday, is not impressed with what he is seeing from some of the game’s top talent.

“Callum Wilson, Harry Kane, Mohamed Salah, they all did it, and it’s something so many forwards do now which is using the inefficient refereeing and the rules to get penalties.

“I don’t want to see it. They’re all doing it, they’re all cheating, they’re all manipulating the referee – you can use what word you want. It’s not going to stop. But why cant referees have the intelligence and common sense to see through it? They can see they’ve over-exaggerated, they’ve overdone it, they’ve dived and after the event, delayed, they’ve thrown themselves to the ground – don’t give the penalties!”

Murphy spent a season with Tottenham back in 2006 but made his name with Liverpool before excelling at Fulham in his later years.

For him to be slating two of his former clubs’ best players suggests that this is an issue which could need addressing.

Murphy is right but how does it change? – TBR View

The referees are already under enough pressure with different rules and VAR looming over their every call. So how does Murphy think that refs can suddenly crack down on this behaviour?

The problem is that while Kane and Salah could be accused of cheating, they did still get clipped so by the laws of the game, they are penalties.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing will probably linger in the game forever.