Where have all the old guys gone?

[ramAnag]

‘If Lawrence could have stayed on his feet but opted to go to ground then that’s cheating’.

No it absolutely isn’t. Week in week out you hear commentators ask ‘would that have been a penalty if he’d gone down?’
It’s fine lines I accept, but...diving when there is no contact is cheating...no debate, just as collapsing in a heap pretending you’ve been hit is.
Going down when a player has been leant on, pushed slightly or marginally tripped has been how it is for as long as I can remember...some you win, some you lose.
Best, Greaves, Lineker, Shearer, Messi, Salah, Aguero, Kane, Hazard etc have all done it...they regularly get manhandled by defenders in the area so they don’t always stay on their feet when they feel contact. Then it’s up to the officials, that’s what happened yesterday, although I’ll concede I don’t expect Tom Lawrence’s name to be mentioned in such exalted company again.

Even with VAR I think yesterday’s decision would have been difficult. IMO, it’s as MA describes and there was contact, but as you say we’ll probably have to agree to differ.