Amongst some there has always been a doubt over Naismith's abilities and merit.
Because of this when he has an off game, the guy gets more stick than say when Lukaku has one of his 'wandering about' games. No criticism or picking on Lukaku here by the way, just using this as an example.
He's an easy target, if Lukaku or Baines or Coleman, etc, and then Naismith had all great games, more people would quote Lukaku, Baines or Coleman quicker. If they all had off games, more people would quote Naismith's name. When Lukaku or Barkley misses an open goal it's bad. When Naismith misses an open goal it sums up that he just doesn't cut it here and people are clambering for him to be sold.
For whatever reason he's never been seen as 'glam' or media friendly as some of our other players, and when things go wrong this serves the critics needs perfectly.
I'm all for people criticising players if the player in question has been truly crap. I'm not saying Naismith performs every game but the stats do back up that he's been far better than some make out, and maybe even better than some of our other more 'accepted' stars. He tries every game and you rarely see him give up. If he was a trier but he was brutal then you could argue that wasn't enough. But he is by far, not the worst player we have.
On here I do wonder sometimes. We call ourselves supporters but some spend more time tearing apart what we have.
(P.S. davek this is not aimed at you. I'm aware you have had enough grief already! I know you never went overboard on criticism of Naismith, I'm more referring to some of those who made ridiculously harsh over the top comments about him over the past seasons. I agree with your thoughts on him being good as an impact sub. Ideally, we would have a more naturally gifted striker to play alongside Lukaku from the start but on the same hand all I was saying is Naismith isn't the worst either).
