Yer a langer, Pulis: Stoke boss risks wrath of the Rebel nation by accusing David Meyler of diving

Stoke City manager Tony Pulis says the club will appeal against Robert Huth’s red card on Saturday, claiming Corkman David Meyler “rolled around” in order to get the big nasty German sent off.

Meyler was named in the Sunderland side for the first time in 13 months after recovering from his second cruciate knee ligament injury in the space of two years.

Choosing an away game in the snow against Stoke’s hatchet-men for the midfielder’s comeback, Martin O’Neill clearly wasn’t too worried about Meyler’s health.

And the former Cork City man found himself at the centre of one of the game’s defining moments when Huth was shown a straight red card by referee Martin Atkinson just before half-time.

But Pulis wasn’t impressed by the Irishman’s antics. “We’ll definitely appeal,” he said. “Initially when I saw Robert go into the challenge, I thought that was reckless. But when you look at the challenge, his feet are on the ground and he pulls away from the challenge.

“He realises he’s made a mistake and hasn’t gone through. The foot that he leads with is scraping across the ground. It’s not even in the air. Why is the lad rolling around if he hasn’t been touched?

“When you get situations when players are rolling around when they’ve not been hurt, something’s got to be done because we don’t want to take challenges out of the game. It is creeping into the game where players are going down now with the intention of getting other players booked or sent off.”

Poll: Did David Meyler dive? [Includes video]