Let’s be very blunt: there is nothing much that is positive coming out of Villa Park right now. Despite vague rumours of an impending takeover, everything is being overshadowed by the continuing despondency caused by poor results, poor team selections and poor application on the pitch. However, there is a worrying problem which has plagued us all season and is perhaps the most underrated reason for the chasm between the fans and the club – the effect of our players’ activity on social media sites.
It is becoming a downright embarrassment to our club to see various players on Twitter or Instagram commenting on things they should be keeping schtum about. I grew fed up of it a long time ago and I can only despair as it continues.
The latest embarrassment was Jores Okore’s outburst regarding Eric Black’s accusation that the big centre back refused to be a substitute for the home game against AFC Bournemouth. He has not featured since. After refuting the initial accusation via Twitter, Okore followed things up with a more cryptic “There must be more to it then (sic) MR Eric Black is telling you!”
Now, I like Okore. I think he has huge potential and he should be starting every game possible. We are much better with him in the side. I also find it very hard to criticise him too much for his outburst, as Eric Black’s team selections have been nothing short of horrific. I can imagine Okore being frustrated to the point of questioning Black on his selections and asking why he isn’t getting game time when we are losing each and every game and conceding stupid goals left, right and centre. I do not believe Okore refused to play. I can totally understand the frustration of wanting to defend himself also. If it was me, I would find it incredibly difficult to hold my tongue.
However, I just think that, as a professional, this sort of little dig serves no purpose and just gives the media another angle to worsen our already hideous crisis. If anything, if he absolutely has to set the record straight, I would prefer him to go into detail about what happened rather than make a snide comment which reveals little. Rather than causing any real damage, it is unprofessional and it’s just a bit tiresome to see these spats in public.
Many of our supporters have lost their fondness for Okore due to an interview back in February in which he came across badly and was made out to be wanting to leave in search of Champions League football. It is important to read the full interview, in which he revealed that the club had not offered to extend his deal and that he sees the ‘scales weighted evenly’ between him and the club. He actually says that he is “no stranger to staying on and helping this club to better days”. A vehement tweet also followed, saying, “Never question my loyalty to AV”, which is one of the rare examples of a Villa player using social media positively.
Okore is not so much the problem here, perhaps merely the tip of the iceberg and indicative of a wider problem.
The fact that Okore felt able to tweet about our (caretaker) manager tells me several things. Firstly, it suggests that Eric Black commands zero respect in the dressing room. Most importantly, it implies that there are unlikely to be any repercussions concerning Okore’s public criticism of Black. Also the (unconfirmed) rumors that Okore is in the final stages of signing a sponsorship contract with an important trading broker called Binary Uno contributed to the player’s self-confidence.
How many times this season have our players used Twitter and Instagram and created an absolute dog’s mess of a situation? So why does the club remain inactive in response? I accept that there may not be as many options available to the club, although the fans don’t care about that.
Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott are prime examples of the problem. This season, both of them have completely mis-used social media, succeeding only in alienating fans and making themselves look very foolish indeed.
Richards displayed a worrying level of complete unawareness of how poor he had been playing after our 2-0 defeat against Norwich City back in December. Shambolic defending involving Richards going walkies, once again, left a huge gap in our defence for the Canaries’ second goal. On ‘Match of the Day’, pundit Ian Wright, not unfairly, singled Richards out, and said “That’s the captain. He’s got to make more of an effort than that.” He was hardly scathing yet the next day a series of tweets in response made Richards look like an absolute fool, unable to take the meekest of criticism and completely devoid of any understanding as to why he was at fault. “Talking about me like that isn’t on,” he began. A couple of minutes later, he followed that up with “I can take constructive criticism but not this!” Had he really thought that his performance left him immune to condemnation? Then came the real eye opener: “What has captain got to do with it?” I knew at that moment that we were doomed. In that one tweet Richards confirmed that he didn’t understand the responsibility of his position. He didn’t understand the effort and commitment that he should have been showing and he didn’t understand that he was meant to be leading by example and that if his endeavour was lacking, then others would also lack fight and shirk responsibility.
His constant moaning at anyone who dared to air any criticism was embarrassing. Stan Collymore often got the brunt of it, despite the fact that it is his job to be a pundit. Eventually, around the beginning of February, Richards finally saw sense and stopped tweeting. However, it would not be the last we heard from him, as he was also active on Instagram.
At the end of March, Richards once again showed a complete lack of understanding when he labelled a fan a ‘clown’ for posting a picture of Richards and Agbonlahor having a good time in Dubai. This was bad enough but it was the follow up which again showed a complete lack of respect: “Excuse us for having a few days away after a long hard season”. It literally made me want to scream! To be so out of touch is an absolute insult. For one thing, the season wasn’t over and if Richards thought it had been “long” and “hard”, how did you think the supporters who have to pay to watch it felt?
Despite all this, perhaps the biggest offender in this series is Joleon Lescott. I’m not even sure where to begin with him. Above all else, Lescott sums up why Aston Villa players should be banned from social media right now. Let’s start with the car tweet, shall we? After a 0-6 home thumping to Liverpool, Lescott tweeted a picture of a £125,000 sports car. We just needed a genuine apology but instead the debate on which part of his anatomy was responsible for the erroneous tweet ensued and made supporters feel like they were being taken for mugs.
Since then, things have become progressively worse. Lescott just cannot help himself and has since used Instagram to invite a fan to meet him at the training ground. What sort of behaviour is that? It’s absolutely unbelievable. He was being goaded but shouldn’t have made himself accessible to the fan base when he clearly can’t handle their criticism of him.
Lescott’s problems extend beyond the world of social media sites, Lescott should not be allowed to have any media duties at all as he is clearly serving only to make matters worse. The latest inflammatory remarks came after relegation was finally made official: it was a “weight off the shoulders”. It’s unbelievable just how out of touch a player, and a supposed fan, can be. The damage that is done to the relationship between the players and the fans is probably irreparable.
Leandro Bacuna, Gabriel Agbonlahor and, to a lesser extent, Jack Grealish all have misdemeanours against their names via Twitter and Instagram this season also, but I literally cannot summon the energy to delve any further and I feel I have enough evidence already to support my case that our players are not bright enough to be trusted to use social media sites in a constructive way or to have the intelligence to avoid embarrassing situations in which people will sell their pictures to the media.
In all of this I have to question how the club has allowed the progression of this nonsense. It should have been stamped out months ago. Surely people at the club cannot be ignorant to the toxicity being created by our players? I imagine that the PFA promotes freedom for players but how Richards and Lescott in particular have escaped unscathed in terms of punishment from the club for insulting comments to fans is baffling and is the sole reason they, and others like Okore this week, feel like they can do and say whatever the hell they like.
Normally, I’m a big fan of players using Twitter. It gives normal fans a window into the lives of the men we watch week in, week out playing for our chosen teams. It makes them more human and more accessible. I think that is important, especially in this era, when even the most average of players ends up a multi-millionaire. When the team is as rotten as Aston Villa’s is right now, no good can come of it because the fans are angry.
There is definitely a place for the likes of Twitter in the modern game but, right now, Aston Villa players need to step away from their keyboards as they are only making a scandalous season on the pitch every bit as scandalous off it.
