The hour or so after a defeat is a particularly toxic time on Twitter and the torrent of bile aimed at players by their own fans seems to be flowing deeper and longer. In the aftermath of that humiliating 6-0 defeat by Manchester City on Sunday, the Chelsea left back Marcos Alonso was assailed with such fans’ verdicts of him as “trash”, “shit”, “the worst footballer I’ve seen”, “consistently dreadful” and “must be cerebrally challenged”. And those were some of the more printable posts. Fellow fans need to call this out more, challenging the abusers in their midst whether in the stands or on social media. To understand properly this complicated battlefield of barbs, it needs appreciating that the majority of supporters manage to attend…

Source: The Times February 12, 2019 00:00 UTC