Comment: Players and the people are divided
We are still in February but already this year supporters of the three biggest clubs in the West Midlands have, in one way or another, all turned on their players.
Last month Villa fans launched a tirade on the team as they sheepishly stepped onto the coach after a 1-1 FA Cup draw at League Two Wycombe.
Wolves fans turned on the players at the end of Saturday's dismal defeat away at Huddersfield, hurling volleys of abuse at those in gold and black.
And, most shockingly, one Albion 'fan' could have blinded club stalwart Chris Brunt with a coin as supporters reacted viciously to his decision to come and applaud the travelling support at Reading.
Football players used to be everyday heroes - idolised by supporters on the pitch, but approachable, normal blokes off it, writes Matt Wilson.
Today, however, the growing disparity in football is increasingly alienating the player and the fan.
The monetary divide between the two is creating an us versus them mentality on both sides of the white line.
If a striker misses a sitter, the first reaction from supporters is usually an incredulous cry of, 'he gets paid tens of thousands of pounds a week!'
Footballers in the Premier League and the Championship are on stratospheric amounts of cash compared to the average supporter, so there's an assumption that they should be capable of doing anything.
Mistakes become unacceptable and ,thanks to the inflated salaries, players become slaves to unachievable expectations.
The influx of money into the game may have improved fitness levels, diet, and injury treatment, but it hasn't improved talent and mental application.
Today's players are faster and stronger than those in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, but they're not technically better and certainly not wiser.
Villa fans will tell you that this season, their team deserve the brickbats, and that it's not the lack of quality that angers the most, it's the perceived lack of effort.
The players are by no means blameless in creating the growing divide with fans.
Too many modern footballers are given so much cash from an early age, they believe they're entitled to it. Too often, they rub our noses in their wealth.
Saido Berahino infuriated Albion supporters by tweeting a photo of himself on a private jet, and Villa's Leandro Bacuna posted a picture of himself on a beach in Dubai after a costly defeat.
It's hard to believe Joleon Lescott's flimsy claim that his tweet of an expensive super car after Villa's 6-0 humbling at home to Liverpool was by way of accidentally tweeting the picture from his trouser pocket.
And just this week, Wolves winger Rajiv van La Parra changed his Instagram biography to 'One week they love you. Next week they hate you. Both weeks I got paid.'
Boo me all you want, I'll sleep soundly on this bed of money, they're saying. What we now have is a vicious circle that's only going to get worse.
As player wages and ticket prices continue to rocket, so do expectations. The lifestyles of footballer and Joe Public will never be the same again. Segregation breeds contempt.
Whoever threw the coin at Brunt on Saturday did not see him as a human being he could sympathise with, he saw him as a modern day football player, a mythical beast rarely seen in the wild on too much money.
Of course, Brunt is far from the kind of prima donnas that plague modern football.
He is a down-to-earth hardworking man from humble background who didn't deserve what happened to him.
Fans pay a lot of money to see their football team and invest a lot of time and effort into supporting them.
They have every right to voice their anger at the players, the manager, the chairman and the board, but there is a line that has recently been overstepped.
The problem is we're breeding a generation of football fans who can't accept defeat.
And unless something is done to bridge the gap between players and supporters, these incidents won't go away.
