cheers, corrected now. No need whatsoever to apologise...as you said I did ask!
I think your points are correct. There are some total half-wits on this site with no consistency of opinion, ludicrously exaggerated ideas about players merits or shortcomings and with extreme reactions to both victory and defeat. These people are extremely annoying and do de-value the whole quality of the site. Sadly, they are representative of the entire decline of our support. I find our supporters embarrassing a lot of the time.
We must be careful that we don't discount negative comments just because they are seen as unsupportive. I beleive it is part of our role as supporters to maintain standards and offer constructive criticism as long as it has some foundation in evidence. At the moment, our squad seems unbalanced, we're exposed to significant risks in key positions and we have not planned adequately for the succession of a exceptional and influential player. A lot of this has to be laid at Rafa's feet. I love the guy and have repsect for his abilities. I do believe, though, that some of his decision-making at a macro level (in the transfer market) and micro level (within matches) are not immune from criticism.
Absolutely. As an example, I was critical last season that Babel didn't come on against Villa instead of Ngog - Babel had had a couple of good performances before that and I still don't really get why Ngog was picked ahead of him. I mean, I understand why Ngog can easily be seen as a superior option up top overall, he shows greater intelligence in that position for one, but at the time, and in context, it didn't and still doesn't make any sense to me. It's never a problem when decent reasons are given, I think, and I agree that fans do have an important role as a 'check and balance' if you like. It's difficult though, because at some point that can also turn into, for example, chants of 'stick your Gareth Barry up your arse', which shocked me at the time and still does - there's a line between criticism and having a go, that isn't always obvious or at least not until it gets crossed to that extent.
As for your first paragraph, I think this:
I think the primary contributor to this knee-jerkism (I'm going to make up my own word too) is the prevalence of sensationalist journalism. In fact, is there really any other kind in football these days? Those who love football but who don't necessarily understand it from a tactical perspective will read the shite in the media and take it as gospel. They figure that if all of these "paid professionals" feel a certain way, then it must be the case. Oftentimes I'm not even convinced that these journos actually believe what they write--they simply try to stir up controversy. But the average fan won't necessarily discriminate and their arguments become simply a regurgitation of whatever they've read in the rags that day.
...is a massive, massive factor. I've got a really good book about the rise of so-called 'churnalism', corparate values imposed top-down on the news industry, leading to fewer, worse trained staff and a massive emphasis on the bottom line of profit rather than seeking truth - the latter being what journalism really should be about. Pandering to ignorance gets a reaction, handily both from the ignorant AND the well informed, thus increasing paper sales/page hits etc etc. Hence why I brought up that McNulty article. I don't think he truly believes in what he writes - or at least not the way he writes it, but he's not writing to generate truth, he's writing to provoke responses, and in that latter sense he does his job very well indeed. By omitting context, history, research and analysis you provoke responses - not even 'debate' anymore - just pure responses and page hits. In that sense, every defeat HAS to be a crisis, and taking it further, I also think that's the source of the Liverpool media bias. It's as simple as Man Utd having the most support, Man Utd generate the most page-hits and biggest TV audiences, so it's very much in the commercial interest to play to the Man Utd story...by challenging the 'glory glory' myth you basically risk alienating the whole the Mancs fanbase, and it's especially the more casual, ignorant fans who buy into it the most who represent the core audience for Sky and phone-ins etc etc etc. most of those people simply don't have one of the brains or inclination to talk in depth about tactics or whatever, so you go with your subject as 'referee scandal' (for example) rather than 'the role of full-backs in the modern game'.
The really sad thing, for me though, is that it doesn't really have to be that way. The funny thing about, if you like 'deeper' culture, say for example classical music versus girls aloud, is that if you take the time to teach people the basics, give them the means to appreciate it, you find that a surprising number of people actually do want to go 'deeper', even if they didn't realise it.
A great example is how people's perceptions of modern art have changed in the last 20 years. I remember when it was seen as totally elitist, complete guff, self indulgent rubbish by twats for toffs. Spring forward and museums being free means people have approached modern art on it's own terms out of curiosity, it's accesible so people have accessed it, and now modern art is perceived totally differently. Go into the Tate modern in London, for example, any day at any time, and there's such a wonderful variety of people. Kids, teenagers, parents, working class people, middle class people, hard-core art fans and critics, all taking something really positive and enriching from the place, and all because the art is at last able to speak for itself. I see football in a similar way, and coming to think of it the ever-increasing prices are probably just as much a factor in football as they have been in modern art. When you pay more for a ticket you feel a bigger sense of entitlement and far more inclined to criticise loudly if you feel in some way hard done by.
