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I was never one for diving — if I had a chance to get a shot off, I’d always take it.

Yet, I’ve been shaking my head in disbelief at the criticism aimed at Mohamed Salah in recent weeks for what people have been particularly eager to call cheating.

It’s been sustained and hostile, and I’m wondering why.

Why it’s been much worse than that aimed at Harry Kane this season, for instance, or in the past say Michael Owen or David ­Beckham (and I’m not singling them out!).

We have to be very careful as football fans. We need to stop and think about whether Salah is being targeted for where he comes from and who he is.

It seems like stereotyping, and­ possibly because he’s an overseas player.

If that is the case, it’s totally ­unacceptable.

(Image: Liverpool FC via Getty)

I’m not condoning diving.

I ­genuinely never did it, even if people still say I dived in that incident with David Seaman when I told the ref it wasn’t a pen. I didn’t – he didn’t touch me, but if I hadn’t jumped, one of us would have got hurt.

There was a time when I was booked for diving, playing at City, and, honestly, I was raging at the time. It still makes me upset to think back on it. Yet the game has changed.

Yes, there have been times when Salah has gone over a bit ­theatrically, ­sometimes he may have gone down a bit easily.

Two things.

One, who doesn’t now?

Two, he’s ­almost always been kicked.

In fact, he has been kicked mercilessly for 18 months. And if he doesn’t go down in a way which let’s the ref see he’s been kicked, then will be get the decision? No chance.

(Image: Arsenal FC via Getty)

Watching the Arsenal-Manchester United game on Friday, Paul Pogba went through early, got hacked from behind, but didn’t go down and then lost the ball. No free-kick.

Soon after, goes through again, gets pulled back slightly. What does he do? Of course, he goes down, because otherwise he knows if he tries to get a shot off and fails, he gets nothing again. It is not as simple as people are making out.

If Salah were this massive cheat people seem to be trying to portray him as, why was the penalty he ­converted against Newcastle at the end of December the first awarded for Liverpool at Anfield in 18 months?

Think about that.

In that time, he’s scored almost 50 league goals, and not one until this past Boxing Day was a penalty in a home game.

(Image: Sky Sports)

That penalty against ­Newcastle ­almost certainly wasn’t one. But how many should he have had ­before that but wasn’t given because he didn’t make it clear he’d been kicked?

Since then, the others have looked pretty clear, even if he was a bit ­exaggerated in going down.

Even the one not given against ­Palace last weekend — no doubt there was contact, and other strikers would have got the decision.

Yes, times have changed from when I hated the idea of going down.

But, as for the suspicion and ­stereotyping of overseas players, maybe they haven’t changed enough.