Embarrassing shambles on The Mag match thread | OneFootball

Well, there we were in Venice, a Newcastle United fan and his wife, standing on the Academia Bridge and gazing along the Grand Canal.

We’d just visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and it seemed like a difficult cultural experience to top… but no!

The muse was upon me, so I leaned over and whispered into Mrs Lass’ ear, “Let’s go back to the b and b, stretch out on the bed and… follow the match on The Mag.”

I couldn’t tell whether she was excited by the prospect, or merely relieved that that was all I had in mind, but off we went!

It was 5.35pm local time by the time I got the team news thread up and was able to catch up with events at Molineux.

Everything seemed fine and the lads were generally in an upbeat mood and waiting for Wolves to submit to the inevitable thrashing.

Unfortunately, life as a Newcastle United fan is rarely so simple. I had gone on record as saying in a thread earlier in the weekend that although people seemed to think that this game was a “gimme” that was hardly likely and it could be a tough match – but I did expect us to come out on top.

People have to bear in mind that this was an away match in the Premier League – and we haven’t exactly set the world alight this season. We have shown plenty of resilience and spirit in refusing to be beaten and had collected a very respectable seven points in the process. However, we have hardly shown the sort of form that would entitle us to stroll into anyone else’s ground and expect to hand out a drubbing.

And so it was proven in the Black Country. Wolves gradually came back at us after, for them, a sticky 15 minutes or so. Gary O’Neil, no mug, had made a little tweak to his system and Wolves started to get on top.

This is where things started to turn sour for me.

A match thread meltdown from fans in the comments section on The Mag, such as I haveve never witnessed before, ensued.

The whipping boy in chief was Sean Longstaff (there’s a surprise). Admittedly, I wasn’t watching the game – and I do think Sean, although he gives 110% effort at all times, is lucky to keep his starting berth these days – but the dog’s abuse he received for the rest of the time that I could stomach reading it was beyond the pale. Jacob Murphy wasn’t far behind, then Lewis Hall, Dan Burn, Tino, Joey and – God help us – even Bruno.

Don’t get me wrong. Any player has to be open to criticism and it did sound as though Sean was having a bad game – but was he worse than Joey? When he tried a pass that was intercepted he was 70/80 yards from our goal, by all reports, and there were still midfield and defensive players to cover. However, a quick counter and a special dummy later and Wolves had scored.

Everything was Longstaff’s fault, though. No mention of the times Joey had given the ball away.

Ah, but hold on. Not everything was down to Sean. Eddie Howe was now becoming the villain of the piece. Clueless team selection, slavish preference given to his favourites. No Plan B. He’s obviously wanting away. His power struggle behind the scenes is unsettling the players…

Here are so many (I know it is still a relatively small number of fans but like graffiti it can appear a lot worse than it is in reality due to the sheer volume of comments certain people make) denizens of The Mag comments section – with a few voices of reason now and again, to be fair – flaying their manager and their team alive.

What happened to “in Eddie we trust”, “we only want a team that tries?”

We call other teams’ fans entitled and deluded but we can’t weather one of those mysterious barren spells when things don’t click either for individuals or the team, despite the fact that we’re having one of the best starts to a season for ages in terms of results.

I know a lot of the more vitriolic comments are born out of frustration and that people often look back and feel that they were a bit too harsh and I also accept that opinions vary and everyone is entitled to express theirs. However, at the end of the day, we have to get behind Eddie and the lads and keep things in perspective.

How many of the more outspoken people on that thread have criticised the fans in the stadium for not getting behind the team and making more noise when the going gets tough?

What have they said about people giving up on the team and leaving the ground early?

Yet there they are slagging off all and sundry because things aren’t going to plan for 30/40 minutes.

Sadly, it got too much to stand for me and I logged off and went out for a beer instead, so I missed the comeback – and no doubt the self-congratulatory comments about how if Eddie Howe had done what they said earlier we would have won at a canter.

Maybe I’ll look back as well later and think I’ve reacted a bit strongly but, hand on heart, I don’t remember a thread being so overwhelmingly negative and, in the case of Sean Longstaff in particular, so personally offensive to both the players and Eddie.