Southampton: Keane calls Ward-Prowse a “cheat” for England moment

Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane has labelled Southampton man James Ward-Prowse a “cheat” after England’s narrow win over Iceland on Saturday.

Ward-Prowse appeared to scuff up the penalty spot before Iceland’s Birkir Bjarnason took a last-gasp spot-kick that could have rescued a point for the hosts and cancelled out a penalty from Raheem Sterling just minutes earlier.

Bjarnason went on to miss the goal entirely with his strike from 12 yards and his standing foot looked to slip as he made contact, and Ward-Prowse’s part in the action did not seem to impress Keane at all.

Speaking on ITV’s highlights programme on Saturday evening, he said:

"“It’s cheating, I don’t like to see that. It’s not allowed.”"

Keane’s fellow ITV pundit Ian Wright appeared to be fine with the incident, pointed out that this sort of ‘gamesmanship’ happens all the time and added that, if a moment like that had won an important game for England, he was not going to complain.

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Ward-Prowse has commented on his actions himself since Saturday. He claims that the incident was more to delay the taking of the penalty in order to give his team more time to regroup and more thinking time for Iceland penalty taker Bjarnason.

Without seeing the state of the penalty spot before the last-ditch spot-kick was taken, we do not know what happened.

However, it is the adding of a ‘nasty streak’ that has made Ward-Prowse the player that has worked his way back into the thoughts of England boss Gareth Southgate.

After being a player who was missing a number of important aspects from his game before Ralph Hasenhuttl arrived as Saints manager, the 25-year-old is now regularly seen making big and important tackles in midfield and doing all he can to win games for his team.

The departure of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has also seen him handed the responsibility of being Saints captain whilst his form from last season gave him the chance to start his first senior international at the weekend.