Simulation Is Ruining the Watch

There’s loads to love about the modern Premier League: the speed, the pressing, the quality on the ball. But it’s getting harder to ignore the bit that’s simply awful to watch, and that’s the constant play acting.

You see it every week. Someone gets brushed on the chest and suddenly it’s hands to the face, rolling around, the whole routine. Not the odd one that might be understandable in the chaos of a tackle, but the blatant stuff that everyone in the ground can see for what it is. It slows the game down, drags the momentum out of matches, and it turns proper contests into stop-start episodes of waiting for someone to get up.

Pundits can’t only go in on bad form

What winds me up is how little gets said about it in the analysis afterwards. Pundits will happily pull a player apart for a poor first touch or switching off at the back post. Fair enough, that’s part of the job.

But why is simulation treated like background noise? If a player is regularly trying to win fouls by pretending they’ve been caught somewhere they haven’t, that’s also a performance issue. It’s part of the game now, and it shouldn’t be, because it’s not clever, it’s not streetwise, it’s just boring. Call it what it is.

It affects the football as well as the mood

The maddest part is when players go down instead of helping their team. You’ll see a side lose the ball, a counter is on, and rather than get up and sprint back, someone stays on the floor hoping the referee stops it. That’s not gamesmanship, it’s refusing to do your job off the ball.

And it changes the feel of matches. Crowd gets frustrated, players get more wound up, and then you’re into the usual nonsense: a bit of pushing, a scuffle, and the same lad who was “hurt” a minute ago is suddenly chest out acting like he’s made of iron.

Retrospective action for the obvious ones

Of course, there are grey areas. Some challenges are genuinely hard to judge at full speed. But the obvious incidents, the clear attempts to con the referee, should be looked at afterwards. Not every borderline thing, not a witch-hunt. Just the ones that make a mockery of it.

Truth is, it’s an insult to the game’s own history. Players in the past didn’t have perfect pitches and all the protection, and plenty of them played for far less money too. Football evolves, fine. But if we keep letting the theatre take over, we’re the ones losing out. The match becomes something you endure, rather than something you enjoy.

Written by RedWolverine: 3 January 2026