David Luiz: The witch hunt continues

Did you want an insight into the mind of the average journalist? Well, here's a good one: After playing a vital role in back-to-back clean sheets against Manchester City and Fulham and missing out on the misery at Upton Park through suspension, you'd think that David Luiz's performances under Rafael Benitez would be beyond reproach.

You'd think wrong. Courtesy of Football365's Mediawatch, here's the Daily Star's Paul Brown on the Brazilian defender:

Luiz has often been criticised and was one of several players below par in the 3-1 thumping at West Ham that has turned up the heat on boss Rafa Benitez.

That little nugget has since been removed from Brown's original article, but it's truly telling of the way the media approaches this type of story -- they have a narrative in their heads are are too stupid or too lazy to actually check whether or not they're true. And, of course, what the media says is reflected by the in-game commentators, who in turn spread the word to the general public.

I get that David Luiz is erratic and not everyone's cup of tea. But when people are just spinning things out of whole cloth to put him down... at that point I might suggest that this has gone well beyond reasonable criticism.