I think Arsene Wenger's comments about English players becoming 'masters' of diving is a little tongue-in-cheek ahead of the North London derby.

Arsenal played Tottenham over the weekend and Wenger said he remembered when there was a big deal about it.

Dele Alli is the main topic of discussion for it at the minute after he was shown a yellow card the other Sunday when Tottenham played Liverpool, plus Harry Kane was accused of diving for the first penalty, which he missed.

Mauricio Pochettino said the media are being too sensitive about it and that also it's not limited to one type of player i.e. not just Spanish or South American.

Alli does like to hit the ground easily – he's a petulant character and still young – and if you've got a manager encouraging it, then what do you do? You could say it's blatant cheating but some managers could whatever it takes to win the game.

It may be rife in some dressing rooms where there's mainly foreign players because they''re brought up on it and are used to it. Is it being passed onto the English game?

For years, we've been moaning about foreign players taking dives; there were none better than Luis Suarez who won that many free-kicks from dives. It seems that if it gains their team an advantage, then managers are quite happy promoting it.

I was listening to a radio chat and they asked if Pochettino was right to say that it's not a big deal.

It's cultural to him though ironically, he was on the receiving end of one England player's 'gamesmanship' when Michael Owen hit the floor to win a penalty in the 1998 World Cup.

I've played in teams where we've had the luck of the ref's decision, so to speak, but I've never been involved where a player has blatantly cheated and dived.

If you're in a managerial role, like I am, and a player is looking to use it to gain an advantage all of the time, then it's something I don't believe in.

If someone has gone over a tackle in a very theatrical way to win the team a penalty, then what are you going to do about it? But to actively encourage it? That's not for me.