I've only just seen this and will attempt to answer because it seems to be causing you some agitation that Bobby or I had not done so yet.Originally Posted by Elwood Blues
I'm at the disadvantage that I still haven't seen any of the Villa game, but I must say it's odd when you compare the reaction to our loss there with the one four days earlier following the Wolves match. Then, and in a complete contradiction to what has been the norm on here for the couple of decades I've been using the board, anyone voicing any criticism, sometimes pretty mild, of a City player was rounded on and accused of disloyalty by some.
By the standards sometimes seen on here down the years, Gary Madine has had a very gentle ride of it when you consider that's he's an expensive striker who has still not scored for us after signing in January - not only that, he was one of two players who failed in what could be season defining moments late on against Wolves and I go back to the Burton game when he really should, at the very least, have scored his first goal for us considering the number of decent to good chances he had when he came on.
Given that he has been injured for some of his time and hasn't had as much game time as I would have expected him to, I wouldn't have come out as strongly against him as some did after the Wolves match. however, I have to repeat that, based on what I've seen so far, Madine is not justifying his fee (even if it is at the lower end of the estimates we've seen) and it's hard to see signs that he is going to bring much to us when he starts to get more time on the pitch - it would be wrong to hold him solely responsible for this, but, from memory, most of our best chances on Tuesday came before he was brought on didn't they?
By total contrast to what happened after the Wolves game, it seemed to be open season on the team and individuals within it after the Villa game. As I said earlier, I can't comment about that much, but I was struck by how many had abandoned the policy of not criticising the team while they are in the hunt for automatic promotion. Aron Gunnarsson may have been as bad as many are saying he was, but its amazing how people's opinion of him has changed in the fortnight since he played very well for twenty odd minutes after coming on against Burton after an absence of nearly five months - this is the man who is our longest serving senior player in terms of when he made his debut for us and, in my opinion, has played far, far more good games than bad for us in the nearly seven years since he signed, yet he's getting slaughtered by some of our supporters - I find the criticism of him since Tuesday a lot stranger than I did the stuff aimed at Madine by a small minority after the Wolves match.
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