Harry Kane went down inside the penalty box during the final stages of the North London Derby after he felt contact from Arsenal defender Sokratis but the referee nor the VAR thought it was a penalty.
And speaking after the game, the Spurs forward believed that he did feel contact but also admitted to the fact that it was 50-50 challenge.
‘He makes a tired tackle, I think on the half-way line I get it, when you’re in the box it’s kind of 50-50,’ Kane told Sky Sports.
‘The ref probably thinks I’m looking for it, but all I’m trying to do is shield the ball. It is what it is, it could be given in some games, it weren’t today.’
Harry Kane had obviously understood that he went down too softly which is why he chose to make such a diplomatic comment but Ian Wright was taking no prisoners when he openly called the England captain a ‘cheat’ on BBC.
‘The ball was on the left and he moved to the right to initiate contact,’ Wright said on the BBC’s Monday Night Club.
‘We saw Jamie Vardy used to do that one where he got his legs tangled up with the defender and his leg would be searching for the contact, trying to get his leg in between the defender’s legs so it looks like [a foul].
‘But what Harry Kane did was stepped across, he initiated the contact and went over. It’s simulation. It’s cheating. I’d rather call it that. That’s all it was.’
Now though shockingly enough, Arsenal keeper Bernd Leno who was perhaps the closest spectator to the controversial challenge has claimed that such things were normal.
Leno told the official Arsenal website(as quoted by The Metro): ‘I don’t know, I think from Kane and also from Sokratis it was maybe over-reacting from both but that is normal in this game.
‘Everybody was going crazy in the last minutes, all the fans and players were crazy and the referee made the right decision, he just said that everyone should calm down so it was okay.’
Leno has obviously tried to show sportsman spirit by looking at the incident through a neutral perspective but we do not think the Arsenal fans will take too kindly at their first choice keeper trying to play down a dive from Harry Kane.
