Chesterfield‘s Kyle McFadzean has claimed that Walsall‘s tactics during their play-off semi-final amounted to ‘cheating’.
The Saddlers took a decisive win in their quest to reach League One on the road, with a 2-0 win thanks to Taylor Allen and Alfie Chang. However, it was their defensive actions which drew the ire of some members of Paul Cook’s squad.
McFadzean’s Frustrations Boil
Walsall took ample time during set pieces and goal kicks during the match, which led to former Blackburn Rovers man McFadzean to comment on that issue after the match. Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield, he said (Quotes via Derbyshire Times):
“There needs to be something done about their goalkeeper wasting so much time and just going down when they went.
“There needs to be a rule for that. I just thought it was cheating. We were putting them under pressure and he (Tommy Simkin, Walsall goalkeeper) just decided to go down. It definitely needs to get sorted out because when we are putting teams under pressure, it is basically a time-out. It is not fair, it is cheating to be honest.
“I asked him (Martin Coy, the referee) about it and he can’t do anything about it. It is not good enough, you can’t just go down and waste time.”
Chesterfield now face an uphill battle to reach Wembley when they travel to the Bescot Stadium on Friday.
Writers’ View
Kyle McFadzean’s comments do raise a point about the state of time-wasting within professional football, but to call it cheating is very extreme. It is a situation that any team, particularly in knockout competitions like the play-offs, would engage in. Whilst certainly a very frustrating thing to happen, tempers will be high, particularly after a match, and that is likely what has happened here. Referees and governing bodies do need to decide on what to do about the issue, as faking injuries does seem to be becoming more of a prevalent concern throughout professional football.
