There is nothing professional about a opposition player basically standing there taking the piss out of one of your mates.
It might well have fired a few of them up to do something, the very least Kovacic deserved was in the next play someone leaving a late one on him and taking a yellow.
That’s team unity, the fight and passion which is all missing at the moment.
Tbh, we've far bigger issues to sort than that. We've not had one player sent off in over 2 years, in any competition. In an era where you can be dismissed for a toenail out of place, it's one of the few records we can still be proud of. Some say it's a lack of fight, I say it's keeping our discipline, not to react to provocation.
The game went as I expected it to. For the first time in years, I went into a game expecting us to lose at home and sure enough we lost. I just felt with all the issues going on atm, the performance would be dull, which it was, and that they would carve us up at will, which they did.
After the last home defeat, I described the rest of the season as "dead". There is nothing left of it to look forward to. This team atm, is not going to win the European Cup, and I think even Jürgen realises that. From the last line of defence to the frontline, the spine of the team has been decimated by injury, while the ones who are still fit to play feel sorry for themselves and pack it in at the first sign of a setback. Mentality Mice. There are better teams out there who play better, more effective football atm, and many have players who will have a field day against that defence and a keeper whose head is somewhere else. Another 2 howlers from him. One was stumbling over the ball Gerrard style in the first couple of minutes, and the other was the disallowed goal. Thankfully VAR bailed him out, but this is not the first instance involving him this season or even this year, and in Europe it will be ruthlessly punished. Yes we know about his father and that's terrible, but he made himself available and declared himself fit to play. While physically that may be the case, mentally though it's obviously a different story.
The current form is a blast from the lowest of the Rafa-Rodgers-Houllier eras. Houllier once didn't win a home league game for 4 months, and I thought it could never be that bad again. Well we're now nearly 3 months in, and we're 2 home games away from it being matched. With no glamour home games left to play, hopefully the worst of the homesickness is now over, but with the way we're playing atm, nothing is guaranteed.
We have 11 league games left to fulfil. Hopefully VVD will be back next month, then maybe we can finish the season with some degree of respectability. Tbh, I barely care whether we finish top 4 or not. Having finally won the league, fighting just to make top 4 is no consolation, even arguably a failure. Fulfil the fixtures, repair the spine of the team, then get ready for next season. I trust that when sanity is restored, Jürgen will bring this club back where it belongs. He's already done it once, and there is not a single other man I would want to get us motoring again.
I just hope that in the event we don't make it, that shower across the pond don't haul him up to explain why the season hasn't quite gone to plan. We're not a football club to them, we're merely a cash cow. It's clearly dried up this year, so they'll want answers in the summer. We eat drink and sleep the club and we know what needs to be done, but after what they did to Dalglish and Rodgers, I don't trust them to even know what's going on, let alone how we put it right. They may be clueless but they are ruthless and we know from past experience, that somebody's head is going to roll for it. We don't know who it will be, but all we can do is pray it's not Jürgen. The last thing we need now is another 4-5 years wasted, trying to get back to where we want to be.