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18th Feb 2015

Wayne Rooney apologised to Preston goalkeeper after diving for a penalty on Monday night

The decision caused a bit of a split on the BBC punditry team

Neil Treacy

Wayne Rooney is a good man. Well, sort of.

The Man United and England captain caused quite the stir on Monday night when he took evasive action (dived) to win a penalty against Preston North End in the FA Cup.

And according to Preston’s goalkeeper Thorsten Stuckmann, Rooney even had the cheek to apologise afterwards for going down a bit lightly, with the keeper claiming: “Rooney told me: ‘Sorry, it was my chance to get a penalty. I had to use that'”.

The keeper told The Sun that if the incident had taken place in the United penalty area, there is no way that referee Phil Dowd would have pointed to the spot.

“I also believe if the situation had happened the other way around, one of our strikers against the United keeper, the ref wouldn’t have given the penalty. I have no doubt about that.”

The penalty was a pretty divisive topic for the BBC punditry team afterwards, with Phil Neville saying Rooney dived to get out of the way of the tackle, while former Irish International Kevin Kilbane said Rooney should have stayed on his feet.

While Kilbane called a spade a spade, England manager Roy Hodgson (who probably wanted the ground to swallow him up), decided to call a spade a soil distribution implement, saying that Rooney took “evasive action” to get out of the way of Stuckmann’s tackle.

Judge for yourself…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfgUYEGlNXU

Hat tip The Sun

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