Apart from maybe one or two mentalists and a smattering of timposters I don’t know any Rangers fan that begrudgingly gives him credit.
Last night when he set up Kent for his goal and his face was beaming afterwards I was so happy for him and indeed us. “He’s finally back!” I thought to myself, but almost immediately found myself slightly wistful that he’d ever been away at all.
So it’s not a grudging admiration when people like myself caveat a terrific performance with a longing to see him produce it throughout a season - it’s actually what we should expect from all our players.
I think there’s a tendency to defend Alfie from any criticism at all because he gets enough of it from the media, and I get that - I’ve defended him often enough myself in here - but there should be room to discuss why it is he seems to disappear for big chunks of any given season even in the aftermath of an awesome display like last night. :shh:
Its the way people construct their posts. Nobody talks about other players in the same way.
Why do you always have to refer back to negatives to highlight a positive? Do you do that with all players or just Alfie? By the same token, if you must mention negatives any time you give him praise, for consistency you should always offer praise when criticising him for an error - do you do this?
The posts speak for themselves.
As people pointed out, we scored 3 goals in 3 matches when he was out and then something like 13 in the very next 3 he is back.
There is no need to hark back to past errors or worry about future performances every time Alfie is discussed.
People could just come on and say "Aye he was brilliant last night" without the caveats and qualifying statements every time. As I say, I dont see the same posters treating other players in the same way, always referring to other negative incidents in light of the current positive performance that is actually the discussion point at hand.
It is a weird perspective to take and especially so when only applied to one individual.
So, its not about criticims of Alfie being merited or not. It is the fact that the same posters cant leave their same negative comment baggage alone when it isnt even relevant to the current incident/match/discussion.
As I said in my post you quoted; the choice of words, the tone and the perspective betrays the true feelings of the posters.