Match of the Day really stuck the boot into Alexandre Lacazette on Saturday night.The Arsenal forward was caught screaming in pain after Burnley’s Erik Pieters caught him with a challenge from behind.We obviously didn’t have any crowd noise to disguise the screams from Lacazette but we don’t think we’ve ever heard that sort of noise on a football pitch before.Burnley manager Sean Dyche certainly hadn’t."The screaming, some real good screaming today," he said after the 1-1 draw."Some real good screaming today, on the scream-o-meter probably the highest I’ve heard for a long time and there’s some pretty high ones."
But the mocking didn’t stop there.Match of the Day got involved by having their own scream-o-meter alongside a replay of Lacazette’s theatrics."It's a world record Ian, isn't it?" Gary Lineker asked Ian Wright before adding: “No Lacazettes were hurt in the filming of the incident."
Then, in a bizarre ending to the programme, Lineker announced that: “We're all off to practice our screaming” as he, Dion Dublin and Wright screamed and pretended to be hurt.
It was all a bit of light-hearted banter and pretty harmless considering Lacazette wasn’t hurt in the end.
However, some fans weren’t happy.
They accused Match of the Day of treating Lacazette differently to, say, a Harry Kane.
In fact, back in December 2019, Match of the Day were accused of defending Kane’s theatrics during Tottenham’s match against Brighton.
Kane went down holding his face after a slight touch from Brighton defender Dan Burn as fans asked Match of the Day to cover it on their show.
However, Lineker, Danny Murphy and Wright hardly called Kane out for his ‘dive’.
"I'd like to think I wouldn't go down for that but the point is, I don't think that's cheating," Murphy said.
"Everybody does [go down]," Wright added.
"I'm not saying he's got unbelievably smashed there, but everybody goes down for that kind of contact now."
"Happy now? Of course you're not," Lineker said to the camera in response to the original tweet asking them to touch on it.