Quite how someone playing for the Potters feels he's in a position to call for reprimands is beyond me...
In the aftermath of fluking a point thanks to a horrific refereeing decision, Jonathan Walters decided to take to the press to say that he thought Chico should be punished by the FA for his playacting.
Now, I'm not defending Chico. His theatrics are embarrassing, and it's clear Swansea fans are growing tired of it as after he received a yellow card for throwing himself to the ground in the Stoke game the East Stand actually applauded. That's the first time I can remember Swansea fans applauding one of their own being punished, but to be honest it was deserved.
There is, however, an element of pot kettle black involved here. Walters spent quite a bit of time on the ground in the recent matchup if I remember correctly, as did a number of his teammates, and their goalkeeper Asmir Begovic was guilty of both consistent time-wasting as well as a couple of shoves which were only punished with a yellow card. When you couple that with the style of "football" Stoke have played over the last few years, and the injuries they've inflicted during the same period, it really is a bit cheeky.
I can honestly say that whenever we played Stoke under Pulis I grew worried for the safety of our players. It seemed officials had become used to their "committed tackles" and rough-house tactics, and that to me was inexcusable. A foul is a foul, regardless of the team it was committed by. Hopefully Mark Hughes can pull them away from that kind of thing, but with a squad full of players deeply saturated in the Pulis way, I doubt it. Nathan Dyer is someone I remember getting a particularly rough time of it, and he was regularly "tackled" with such a lack of consideration for his safety that I considered it a miracle if he got out of the game without suffering a serious injury.
It gets even more ludicrous when you consider the only reason they got anything out of the match was because of a ridiculous penalty decision. Stoke gained a point thanks to the officials, and should be counting their chickens - not lashing out at what they perceive (rightly or wrongly) to be cheating on Chico's behalf. Whether he was baited into talking about the incident I can't say, but in my opinion he should look closer to home before accusing an opponent of bending the rules.
Jonathan Walters - sit down, and shut up.