James Shield - Talking Sport

IT'S OFFICIAL – football has gone mad.

Not because of Rob Styles' regrettable refereeing at Anfield, the astronomical salaries being paid to average players or controversial ghost goals at Craven Cottage.

No, it's the fickleness of its fans which has led me to deduce the game's mental health is in a sorry state.

Two games into the season – three if you follow events north of the border – and already it's possible to hear chanting from the terraces and callers to radio phone-in shows calling for a manager's head.

Absolutely, ruddy ridiculous.

I've always reached for the off-button every time I've heard someone on Five Live or Talksport use the phrase "tactically naive" but this term I've decided to break my golden rule and actually listen to these arguments from these self-opinionated experts who have honed their expertise on Championship Manager.

Obviously they feel that men like Gordon Strachan, Arsene Wenger and Sammy Lee – three men who have spent almost their entire lives absorbing knowledge at the sharp end – should bow to their greater judgement but thankfully, it seems, the targets of their bile have come out fighting.

"I was watching television and it was Martin O'Neill, Martin Jol and Alan Curbishley who were being criticised after one game of football," said Strachan, fresh from hearing his own players, who are so poor they hold the SPL title, abused by a section of the fans during their recent game at Kilmarnock.

"This is crazy. Martin O'Neill brought up the subject of phone-ins – the curse of everybody in football.

"I told the players at Kilmarnock, 'listen to me – forget the rest, only listen to me. I said, 'Listen to me, I will tell you if you are a good team or a bad team. You are a good team'."

Even Bryan Robson has seen his credentials as Sheffield United manager questioned by some fans after Saturday's defeat at Watford.

Indeed the very fact that someone can even raise such a query after two league games probably says more about their own intelligence than the subject of their bile.

Thankfully, I can report, 95 per cent of those who follow the team from Bramall Lane are more sensible but, unfortunately, it's always the idiots who shout loudest.

Football is all about opinions. That's what makes it so great and that's what will ensure it remains so.

Express a different one by all means. Beg to differ with the boss. But please, don't call them stupid because they have a different one to your own.

Because, to be blunt, if you do then you're an embarrassment to yourself and your club.