Asked if Ngog is strong enough to cope with the expected abuse from opposing supporters, Benitez responded: “I haven’t seen Ngog having any problems in any training session, in any other game diving. He is a very honest player, a young player with quality and a good mentality.

“I could name 20 players who have these problems but not Ngog. I think it will be a massive mistake (if he is labelled a diver now).

“There are bad tackles every week which are more dangerous for the integrity of the players than this situation. It is a situation you can see in a lot of games.”

The fair play of French forwards has been further questioned this week following Thierry Henry’s handball that helped prevent the Republic of Ireland from reaching the World Cup finals.

But Benitez says the two incidents cannot be compared and revealed all of Liverpool’s players are regularly reminded of their sporting responsibilities.

“I have spoken to David and there is a massive difference between being the target of a tackle that makes you jump and you fall over, and when you touch the ball with your hand,” said the Anfield manager.

“It is totally different to me. I think we were talking too much about this and it is two different situations.

“I always tell my players to stay on their feet. We want to do things properly.

“Always we talk with players about the way we want to do things, the way that we want to behave, the way we want to win, so they know.

“It doesn’t mean that in a season you will not see situations like this. We don’t want to see it, but it sometimes happens. The main thing is realising about it and trying to do something positive.”

Benitez also reiterated his belief that poor tackles and not diving are the real problem afflicting football at present.

“You have seen a lot tackles in football where players go down but they are not necessarily diving,” he said. “It is part of the game.

“For me, the worst thing is bad tackles. Always I will say the same. We can talk about this for months if we want, but the bad tackles are more dangerous than anything.

“Think about some players who have injured for months because of a bad tackle and yet everyone was talking about them for diving.”