Walcott: "I actually dived trying to win the penalty"...

This is obviously angering, no matter how funny he thought it was after the game joking with Phil Dowd. It could have cost us very dearly - how rarely do we in the Championship see a linesman have the balls to alter the referee's decision? Good job we had the "improved" officials. (I say "improved" as I just mean they're not as completely inept as we have seen for the majority of our games over the past months).

Had the officials noticed he'd dived and not had to award then repeal a penalty moments before the second was given, I doubt that the small tug would have been given, especially since it seemed Walcott getting his shot away, straight at Schmeichel could have been seen as the advantage. We've seen them given however and que sera, sera I suppose!

Walcott:

“I thought (Dowd) did give the penalty to be honest. I just want to apologise to the managers I actually dived trying to win the penalty.

“I said to one of their players would you have done it if it was the last few minutes and he said he I probably would have done it.

“I’m not the sort of player to do it I own up to that and I apologise for that. It’s one of those things that I don’t like to see in my game. I’ve heard some people say if you feel just a slight touch you should go down so it can work both ways.

“I’m not happy with myself for doing that but I’m happy that we got the draw in the end. (Alex Bruce) was fine about it. Whether he knew if it was a penalty I don’t know but I said sorry I’m trying to win the game. I had a little bit of a laugh and a joke with the referee afterwards saying that’s the first dive I’ve ever done can you tell?”

Cheating doesn't make me laugh Theo.