Chris Flanagan's sports blog: When Lucas Neill went down clutching his face in a vain attempt to get his former team-mate Jason Roberts sent off on Saturday, it should have been seen as an act of betrayal. In fact, it was a depressingly commonplace occurrence.

Neill, you will recall, was once a popular member of the Blackburn Rovers team.

During five-and-a-half years at Ewood, he displayed no shortage of defensive talent.

Indeed, when he returned to East Lancashire with West Ham United at the weekend, that talent did not appear to have deserted him.

When it came to throwing his body in the way of a goal-bound shot, the Australian had no fear.

Last time I checked, Neill was 6ft 1in tall and 12st 7lbs in weight. Hardly Shaun Wright-Phillips in terms of stature.

But, as Roberts attempted to fend him off during the opening stages of Saturday’s game, the most innocent of arms appeared to send Neill flying to the ground in a nanosecond of agony.

The contact was minimal and the intention to harm non-existent. The use of the arms to shield the ball is something Roberts has built his bustling career upon.

Yet Neill, who angered so many at Ewood with the nature of his departure to those Champions League certainties West Ham two seasons ago, saw fit to go to ground.

The only thing that might have legitimately prompted such crumbling of the knees would have been Roberts whispering in his ear: ‘I see Liverpool are doing well at the moment.’

Seconds later, when it became clear that referee Chris Foy had no intention of showing Roberts a card, Neill’s pain receded rapidly. He got back on his feet and got on with the game.

One wonders why he did not feel capable of doing that in the first place.

It was an incident that these days collects little headlines, because so many players across the Premier League are prepared to put their reputations at stake in an attempt to win an unfair advantage over their opponents.

Neill is a fine player and should not need to do such things, in the same way that Cristiano Ronaldo would be far more universally appreciated if he resisted the temptation to fall over every time an opponent attempted to tackle him.

After Morten Gamst Pedersen’s delayed fall to earth at the Emirates last week, Rovers boss Sam Allardyce said: “Players feel they are being denied what is due them and start wondering if there is any point trying to stay on their feet.”

He is probably right, but we have reached an increasingly sad state of affairs.

Even if a foul has been committed, referees should be allowed to book players for exaggerating contact – if only that possibility didn’t open a Pandora’s box in terms of judging what is an appropriate reaction to a foul.

There seems no way out of this predicament, apart from a reliance upon the players themselves to take responsibility for their own actions.

And when that is the case, it becomes apparent that there really is little hope.

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