Should have been sent off. The FA can't look back at it now as he was given a booking, however the slap on Lallana may be looked at.
I saw Rocha twice give the "****er" sign to the crowd when the ball was nowhere near him. He wasn't even discrete about it. He really appeared to show total disregard to anything yesterday. Even if he'd been abused, he needed to show some professionalism. Now before the "lads" get down my that about fans shouldn't give it out, he's only human etc, may I point out the behaviour of Kelvin Davis when he went to get the ball back from the "creature" in the front row who pushed all his mates out the way to get te ball, hold on to it and stand giving Kelvin a volley of abuse for 10 seconds. Kelvin just stood there and looked at him, said nothing and made no gestures. That's how a professional should behave.
You can't call Portsmouth fans 'creatures' when it was the Southampton fans who pelted our keeper with coins and whiskey bottles in the first leg. Giving someone abuse is bad, certainly, but it's not quite as bad as throwing dangerous objects at them. As for not being able to make out a single fan in the crowd, I agree with 3rd eye that it was possible. Remember Rooney's reaction to something heard in the crowd in front of the camera's after scoring? And Old Trafford (I think it was) has a much bigger crowd than St Mary's.
Footballers are professionals at work... If a member of staff at a supermarket punted something at a customer they woulf get sacked... Should of been sent off. End of
With regards to Rocha kicking the ball at the fan, I think the issue is more of whether or not he did it intentionally, rather than whether or not it can be justified. If intentional, then it can't be justified. The example given by SaintsFan86 is a good one. Remember that Suarez received a one match ban this season for giving the V sign to the Fulham fans (or maybe it was just the middle finger?). And I'd say that causes a lot less harm than punting a ball at someone. The fact that they'd given him 90 minutes of abuse didn't come into it (albeit those Fulhams were still in the wrong themselves).
Maybe the FL will review it. If the gestures are caught on camera he could get into bother, here's hoping!
Has he justified his £40k salary this week then? Wonder if all the staff sacked so he can keep on playing see it that way?
Can't blame the fans look at the way fox was treated for every throw at their place and he didn't punt the ball into them. They tried grabbing him.
Adkins, who rarely talks about officials, said that he would have hoped that officials would do their job...speaks volumes coming from him as he is not a whinger.
Disgusting player. Almost elbowed Lallana in the face and got away with it as he only got Adams shoulder (that was blatant violent conduct) Next he tanks it into a fan from point blank range, finally he slaps Lallana in the face. Jose should have had a word, taken him under his wing and taught him how to play the game.
No wonder there is animosity between the clubs with morons like you around. Good luck to all genuine football supporting Pompey fans, who will be sharing our disgust of your inane rantings.
He's a dirty **** and thumped that ball as hard as he could in frustration. He probably didn't mean to hit a fan, but it smashed a woman right in the face, could've done some damage. He's got a terrible disciplinary record and It's understandable after seeing the unprofessional manner in which he played the game yesterday. Should've been sent off for two yellows, one being elbowing Lallana off the pitch with no intent to win the ball, the other for tapping Lallana's face/timewasting by kicking the ball into the stands.
The sad thing is, if Adam had gone down clutching his face, Rocha probably would have gone and we'd have likely won the game. As much as I disagree with it, and think players who do it are scum, the fact is, that's all refs seem to understand. He didn't see it, so the only way Adam could have signalled what happened would be to go down. I was sitting about two feet away from that bloody awful linesman, and saw that he had seen it, and that was indeed what he seemed to talk to the ref about.
I think the fact that the referee at the away game at falling down park, came into our changing room after the match and praised the players for not reacting to crowd abuse was a massive plus for our club. This lad had only one intention when kicking the ball and that was at the crowd , he then laid hands on Lallana and should have been given a straight red.
