How much fuss did a couple of nothing incidents in our game against Pompey cause eh?
It’s a man’s game and yet, when we put a bit of fight into a performance, we’re all but accused of GBH. What’s that all about?
I’ve never been one to defend our players against the indefensible, so this isn’t a case of my arguing black is white for the sake of it. And maybe at a push I’d accept Sturridge’s ‘elbow’ on Tommy Smith was a little grey, but when Ricardo Rocha comes out spouting about Malouda’s challenge on him being deliberate, to be honest that’s just a joke.
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve watched the replay, I can’t see anything in Malouda’s challenge that suggests he was doing anything but going for the ball. Rocha clearly sees something I don’t, because he’s out stating “He just hit me and did not try to get the ball. At the time I thought I’d broken a bone in my face. I went to hospital because I was not feeling well. The pain was so great I thought something was broken.” Ok, so it hurt but that doesn’t make it intentional. It was a 50:50 challenge, the ref dealt with it at the time – get over it ffs.
As for the Sturridge incident, I’m not convinced he even knew much about where Tommy Smith was, so how the world and his wife could’ve ended up on the back of the ‘deliberate elbow’ bandwagon is another mystery. The FA at least have seen enough sense not to class it as ‘off the ball’, so referee Lee Mason is deemed to have dealt with it at the time, saving the FA a bit more work and us more unnecessary aggravation.
I guess Stevie Me’s let off against Pompey’s Michael Brown didn’t leave them much choice really?
Blue is the colour
