Penalty fuels Gerrard dive debate

Gerrard won the penalty - but Lampard missed it

Former England striker Ian Wright defended Steven Gerrard's "dive" to earn a penalty in the win over Hungary.

Replays showed there was no contact from Csaba Feher on Gerrard but Wright did not condemn the England midfielder.

"Other teams will do it against us, so why don't we? It will happen to us again, so we should," he said during the BBC's Match of The Day coverage.

Ex-England skipper and fellow BBC pundit Terry Butcher said he believed Gerrard dived to get the spot-kick.

Butcher told Five Live Sport: "It was never a penalty, Gerrard dived. You can't give a penalty for that.

"Feher came in two-footed to win the ball and Gerrard took it to one side and then went down, there was no contact whatsoever.

"Had there been contact he would have been stretchered off as it was a reckless challenge."

Crystal Palace keeper Gabor Kiraly saved the resulting penalty from Frank Lampard in England's 3-1 win at Old Trafford on Tuesday.

A Football Association spokesman said it had no comment to make.

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Opinions on the penalty from our 606 message board:

I think the dive (and it was a dive) was very sensible. The defender was coming in with both feet. Gerrard jumped out of the way, doing the dive in the process. Good bit of self-preservation. But still cheating, I admit.
SocratestheGooner

If this had been another country, there would have been cries to high heaven.
Tonyaaa

Wrighty should keep quiet if he has the 'they'll do it to us, so let's do it to them' attitude.
UpTheRovers

606 VIEW It irritates me (and not just when it involves England players) that as soon as players go down there is an immediate assumption that it must be a foul or a dive. Sometimes it simply is a fall or a trip. The guywithnousername 606: Have your say

England shouldn't have this in their game, and to be honest I'm glad we didn't score the penalty... even though I want us to win the game. We shouldn't have been awarded one, so I don't think a goal would have been right.
SuperEdgarsGoggles

You can't have one rule for one player - ie Drogba or Pires - and another for English players like Gerrard.
Irishlad

Why would Gerrard dive in a pre-tournament friendly? You see what you want to see.
Panchopuskas

Great foot work by Steve G or else he would be missing the World Cup with that two-footed challenge by the Hungarian. And then where would we be...?
KOP_QPR

If it's a non-English player, the English are very quick to call others cheats. But when they do it themselves, then it's all fine and fair?
Soccer guru