There is a time to be silent and a time to make as much noise as it humanly possible!

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If a player wants to leave a club then there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. 27 year old England and Everton defender Joleon Lescott appears to have chosen the wrong way. However It’s not all his own fault, but does the fact that Manchester City have been guilty of truly despicable behaviour mean that the former Wolves man is not deserving of a good boo from the Toffees supporters?

The club’s awful display at home to Arsenal on Saturday can not be laid solely at Joleon’s door but nor can it be disregarded completely. He played as poorly as the rest of the back four and his performance was so far removed from his consistently impressive displays of last season to have left many wondering if Lescott hadn’t already left and that this was some kind of robotic device built to look like him but had not been fitted with a ‘positional awareness’ microchip.

I am not for mindless booing but if a player openly displays his desire to leave a club then he really can not be surprised if some of the home support abuse him in this manner, and why shouldn’t they? It seems perfectly reasonable for a fan of a club to take offence at a player trying his level best to force his employers to accept a deal for his services, a deal that David Moyes has made categorically clear he has no intention of accepting.

There will be some who state, quite accurately, that booing him won’t help matters and that it would in all likelihood make his performance all the more abject but then that isn’t really the point is it?

Those who boo a player for playing extremely badly are clearly under the misaprehension that doing so might wake them up from their stupor and that on very rare occasions can be the case, but booing a player for off the field complaints is in my view wholly acceptable and is far more appropriate than simply slagging someone off for misplacing a pass.

In all likelihood within hours of you reading this article the deal may already be done that sees the England international pack his bags and leaves Merseyside. It is worth noting that if/when this occurs and Lescott returns to Goodison Park in a opposition kit, he can expect to receive booing of an entirely more vocal and lengthier sustained barrage of abuse.

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