We can all be ‘told you so fans’… BUT!

 Football fans. Which one are you? I must admit, at times I’ve been both!

As recently as 4.27pm on Saturday, I allowed myself get caught in the trap of thinking the worst as I discovered out of form, out of ideas and bang rubbish Norwich City, were 2-0 up versus my beloved Irons.

How dare they! They had lost five on the trot, we had just won an epic battle with Liverpool, and Payet had signed a contract with us, meaning he won’t leave until he collects his pension!

What was going on? I let myself down by tweeting that the lads can expect a nice Sunday morning training session.

As soon as I saw it I in black and white, I thought to myself:  “What the hell are you doing?”

Low and behold, the Frenchman pops up on the end of a parried Moses shot, and a lovely couple of balls from Carroll and Payet set Noble up for a beaut of a strike!

Happy days, and egg on my face. I’m taking the credit though, as my tweet had the desired effect and no doubt Slav got the message to the boys and my career as a motivational speaker was born…..!!!! For the more intense among you, I jest!

At full time I saw the usual, “shoulda won” and  “Emenike is rubbish ” along with a healthy splattering of the usual “u fickle (insert naughty word here)” which is often trotted out by those that keep their disappointment to themselves in the hope that it will be rewarded.

It got me thinking though. Is it better to be fickle, celebrating and praising a win, and slaughtering the players for a sub par performance and result, or is it more helpful to blindly support no matter what the tactics, selection or performance, without criticism?

We all love a win and hate a loss, but are you fickle for questioning a bad performance and praising a good one?

Are you more of a fan if you shut up and say nothing but pop your head above the parapet only to say “I told you so?” I think we all have a bit of both in us.

To be honest, If you sat idly by and accepted some of Big Sam’s dross then you are a bigger man than me. I was on his case big time.

That said, I was big enough to heap praise on him when the stumbled across that winning formula for the first few months of last season, with the caveat that he would only let himself down if he brought his two favourite sons back in the team as soon as they were fit. Sadly he was true to form and the rest was history, as was he.

My point is that to question under performance is fine, as is praise when it’s due. But the OTT knee jerk reactions are something very different. There are some who claim the manger has no clue and I unhesitatingly call them out on my social media. I can’t take that sort of nonsense seriously at all.

Yep, Bilic was clueless this week etc.

How fortunate he been so lucky for the other 20+ games eh?

My hissy fit on Saturday that was all of three minutes, was short due to the comeback, and the fact that it suddenly dawned on me we played a full on two hrs of football on the Tuesday, picked up more injuries, and despite this, were  unlucky not to nick it on Saturday.

 I nearly turned into one of those fans I laugh at. Fortunately normal service resumed very quickly.

Which one am I then? If I’m honest….. BOTH!!!

One final thing that made me chuckle on Saturday was when BT Sport presenter and Norwich fan Jake Humphrey,  tweeted at 16:23 on Saturday: “Yessssssssss!!!!!!!! Knew we’d win today.  This is what happens when John Ruddy comes back in. Whole team looks more solid with him in…”

I think that tweet was the very definition of “premature adulation”……

See you at Ewood. COYI !!!!