The diving criticism of Mohamed Salah is incredible – and slightly sinister – Robbie Fowler

I was never one to dive – if I had a chance to get shot, I would always take it.

Still, I nod in disbelief at the criticism directed at Mohamed Salah in recent weeks for what people particularly wanted to call cheating.

It is supported and hostile, and I wonder why.

Why was that much worse than Harry Kane this season, for example, or in the past, say Michael Owen or David Beckham (and I do not distinguish them!).

We must be very careful as football fans. We must stop and think about whether Salah is targeted for his place of origin and who he is.

It looks like stereotypes, and maybe because he's a foreign player.

If that's the case, it's totally unacceptable.

I do not tolerate diving.

I have never done it, even though people still say that I plunged into this incident with David Seaman when I told the referee that it was not a pen. I did not – he did not touch me, but if I did not jump, one of us would have been hurt.

There was a time when I had booked to dive, play City and, honestly, I was raging at the time. It still upsets me to rethink that. Yet the game has changed.

Yes, there have been times when Salah has been a little theatrical, sometimes he was able to go down a bit easily.

Two things.

One, who does not do it now?

Two, he was almost always hit.

In fact, he has received ruthless kicks for 18 months. And if he does not let himself be shot down so as to let the referee see that he has been kicked, will he make the decision? No chance.

Looking at the Arsenal-Manchester United match on Friday, Paul Pogba was eliminated early, was hacked from behind, but did not lose and then lost the ball. No free kick.

Shortly after, pbades again, is slightly removed. What is it doing? Of course, he falls because otherwise he knows that if he tries to shoot and fails, he gets nothing new. It's not as simple as what people do.

If Salah was this huge cheater, people seemed to want to represent him, why was the penalty that he converted against Newcastle at the end of December the first granted for Liverpool at Anfield in 18 months?

Think about it.

At that time, he scored close to 50 goals in the league, and not until that last day of boxing was a penalty kick in a home game.

This penalty against Newcastle was certainly not one. But how much should he have had before, but it was not given because he did not clearly indicate that he had been kicked?

Since then, the others seemed very clear, even if it was a little exaggerated.

Even the one that was not given against Palace last weekend – there was definitely no contact and the other strikers would have had the decision.

Yes, times have changed since I hated the idea of ​​going down.

But with regard to the suspicion and stereotypes of foreign players, they may not have changed enough.