Harry Brent has called for Arsenal defender Gabriel to be banned after his viral dive against Brighton, describing the incident as "blatant, shameless deception."
In his latest column, Brent said he was glad Gabriel missed the decisive penalty in the Champions League final, claiming the defender deserves good fortune "about as much as Florian Wirtz deserves his £116million price tag."
While Gabriel may be a "diamond of a fella off the pitch," Brent argued that on the pitch he is "about as likeable as sandpaper in your boxers."
Shameless simulation
The incident occurred at the weekend when Gabriel won a free kick against Brighton in a display Brent described as "so annoying and slap-worthy it might as well have been sponsored by James Corden."
While shielding the ball as it trickled towards the corner, Gabriel waited for one of Yasin Ayari's arm-hair follicles to nudge "a couple of oxygen atoms in his direction," then collapsed "like a Victorian maiden fainting at the sight of an exposed ankle."
Brent acknowledged that it is "trademark Arsenal s*** housery," but questioned why, with all the cameras in the stadium and VAR, such behaviour cannot be stamped out.
"Going down easy is one thing, but this was taking the absolute p***," he wrote. "It was blatant, shameless deception – i.e. the Ryan Giggs school of family values."
Calls for retrospective action
Brent argued that diving will never be eradicated completely since the line between simulation and a foul is "thinner than my patience." However, he asked what is stopping football authorities from punishing Gabriel retroactively.
"Book him. Ban him. Fine him. I don't care. Just do something," he wrote, adding that clamping down on objective cheating would cut Arsenal's "whingey Brazilian man-baby down to size."
A volley of folly
In the same column, Brent addressed the online debate over whether Dominik Szoboszlai's goal against Tottenham last week was actually a volley.
He described watching football Twitter try to define a volley as "a total embarrassment where everyone involved got it catastrophically wrong."
Szoboszlai controlled the ball on his chest, let it bounce, and struck it on the way back down. Brent said it was, by definition, a "volley" since the ball was airborne, but not a "proper volley."
He argued that comparing it to full volleys like Marco Van Basten vs the USSR or Zinedine Zidane vs Bayer Leverkusen was "either dishonest or stupid."
Brent also dismissed those calling it a "half volley," saying half volleys are struck the split-second the ball bounces off the ground, citing Papiss Cisse vs Chelsea as an example.
