Scapegoats are a common thing in football and seemingly on the increase in recent times with everyone and their cat being able to voice their opinion writes DONOGH HURLEY.
The idea of Monday morning water-cooler conversations about the game the weekend before are a thing of the past, as thousands seek out Twitter fishing for favourites and retweets, spreading a healthy virus of wit, hatred, humour, anger, frustration and, more importantly, blame.
Why are football fans so quick to play the blame game?
Granted, it is a tired cliché to suggest that football fans are fickle (clichés are such as they are largely truthful), but the outpouring of blame and finger pointing in football discourse is all a bit tiresome. It is the player who has dived to win a penalty for his team at your expense, even though you turn a blind eye to similar incidents that involve your own players. Or sometimes it is the player who you were so excited about seeing pull on your club’s shirt, that you over-hyped his quality to the point where he is deemed a failure after just ten games (see Balotelli, Lamela and Ozil).
This is not to say that there should never be incidence in a narrative where nobody should be held accountable. The issue lies when apportioning blame becomes more of a diversionary tactic rather than honing in on matters closer to home.
Take last week for example. The injury sustained by Julian Speroni from the clash with Craig Dawson from the corner that led to the opening goal for West Bromwich Albion has seen the centre back harangued by large sections of the Palace faithful as being a disgrace.
Speroni had to be substituted following the incident, which saw him take a hefty knock from the forearm of Dawson. Everybody’s favourite referee Mark Clattenburg became Palace public enemy number one for allowing the goal to stand. He was even pulled from pillar to post for having the temerity to attend an Ed Sheeran concert after the game. Who gave him the right to have a normal life?
Why was the focus of online ire not aimed towards captain Mile Jedinak and his moment of pure lunacy in going to ground in the area three minutes into injury time? A tackle so poorly timed those watching on could barely believe the stupidity our experienced captain displayed by going to ground so casually. No, the referee was the only reason Palace surrendered a two goal lead apparently. I saw tweets such as ‘Clattenburg 2-2 Palace‘ doing the rounds showing the sort of rose tinted, narrow view of proceedings that seem to permeate so often.
Just the week before, Craig Pawson was the target. A man whose decision to ‘correctly’ send Damien Delaney off was met with disbelief that he had the temerity to restore man power parity following Azpilicueta’s deserved red card moments before. It should have been asked why Delaney, from the off, seemed destined to get a red card through a combination of late and lazy challenges, along with his relentless and vocal questioning of the decisions that went against him.
With the Speroni incident, there is of course an argument to be made that Dawson’s clattering of the Palace stopper was key in the goal. It could also be argued however that Speroni had made a hash of his attempt to clear the cross in the seconds before Dawson clattered him. It may be on the flimsy side of the argument, but the point of focus for the game had to be the concession of a late penalty, the lack of response to conceding just after the break and the noticeable negative shift in performance in the second half.
Every club is guilty of it, and Palace are no different. But if Warnock consistently takes it upon himself to harangue referees in his post-match comments, it is a convenient deflection of his own and his team’s wider responsibilities. Warnock has been doing this for years, yet does not seem to benefit from the sort of favourable decisions that became synonymous with Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford through his years of doing it. If it has not worked by now Neil, you should probably think of another approach.
To blame a referee is too easy and too lazy a gripe to consistently fall into. It will not be referees who keep Palace up. Survival and progression this season will be down to how the players and Warnock react to different scenarios. Survival is about demonstrating discipline and control when you are playing against a side with significantly more quality than you like Chelsea, or ensuring you close out a game in a manner similar to the Leicester City game earlier this season.
Palace will no doubt have the rub of the green when it comes to decisions across the course of the season, but what counts is the plethora of incidents that do not involve the referee or any pesky third party when it comes to attacking and defending. We can attack referees all we want over the errors they may make, but ignoring your own team’s deficiencies as a result is foolishly ignorant, and foolishly all too common amongst the Palace contingent.
