The Rocha Sending Off Incident!

Just watched the 4mins highlights on Cardiff City Player and the incident between Bothroyd and Rocha is shown in great detail!

Rocha pulls Bothroyd down, who appears to grab Rocha's arm as he's falling and they both end up on the ground!

Rocha walks away, but it appears that Bothroyd may have said something to him and Rocha marches back to Bothroyd, who stands his ground and Rocha sticks his head into Bothroyd's!

I know this is going to sound quite biased, but Bothroyd bends his head a few inches slowly forward, but it looks merely an effort, not to get hit on his beak!

After watching the Football League Show and listening to their analysis of it I think it was quite a harsh sending off if I'm honest, if they've come together like that because one of them has said something or whatever then they should probably both be booked.

After watching the Football League Show and listening to their analysis of it I think it was quite a harsh sending off if I'm honest, if they've come together like that because one of them has said something or whatever then they should probably both be booked.

Jay was certainly wrong to say anything to Rocha (if he did), which may have caused the reaction and he also spent too much time, whingeing about some of our stray passes and being petulant on occasion yesterday, but during the incident with Rocha, Jay stood still, whilst Rocha marched up to him and purposefully stuck his head into Jay's.

Yes, Jay could have and possibly should have just walked away, but how many of us run away from confrontations, especially when they then get accused of being cowards?

Clearly if Jay had just walked away, Rocha probably wouldn't have been sent off, but if somebody rushes up to you, goes to stick their head into your face, I suspect that most people would drop their head forward and try to avoid having it smashed into their face as well!

I'm not biased and have no feelings towards Claridge either way, but the aggressor here, was clearly Rocha and if it had been the other way around, I'd have slated Jay for it, much the same as I did, when he ended up being banned for being stupid and petulant, just before we lost to The Jacks last October time!

I agree with you Overthemoon. Bothroyd maybe deserved a booking at the most but Rocha was just angry for the entire 5 minute period of the incident happening. You only need to see the manner in which he approached the fourth official to show he had lost the plot. You can't go up to someone and do that. Just because you wait until an inch before their head before you make a plant with the nut doesn't stop it from being a headbutt. I hate sly pricks like that.

sledging is part of the game and professional footballers should be able to deal with it, i would love to hear some of things Bellamy says to his opponents, having said that the young Sheffield Utd player McGuire went into to Bellamy on Tuesday with a tough tackle and on getting up Bellamy put his thumb up as to say good tackle

I was amazed when Rocha was sent off and I'm not totally convinced he deserved a straight red having seen it on the Football League Show.

That said I suppose you could argue that he could have been sent off for a double booking 1. for the way he pulled Bothroyd to the ground and 2. for the way he marched up to Jay after that.