Love is Noise

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A lot has been said over the past nine months about this team’s ability to play under pressure. Many of the fans have written off the current crop’s chances of becoming a real force, saying they haven’t got the stomach to fight it out.

They’ve actually done pretty well considering they’re playing in an atmosphere worse than a closed stadium. Sitting in the Emirates having to listen to the small band of away fans drown out a home crowd over ten times their size has been perhaps the most embarrassing thing about this season. I’m amazed the team has managed to put together any home wins at all when they’re playing in front of a spoilt passive-aggressive crowd who refuse to make any noise until Arsenal are in the lead.

Arsenal’s support has a reputation for being reticent, and I don’t disagree with opposition fans who mock us for our three songs. A bit of creativity wouldn’t go amiss. In fact, funnily enough, sometimes other club’s fans sing songs about individual players. Sounds crazy, I know – surely just monotonously chanting the name of our club over and over again should be enough? But you’d be surprised how much more helpful it is to the team than bitching about them in your seat for 85 minutes and then leaving early to beat the Underground rush.

Worse yet, do those of you who storm out in a strop halfway through when things go wrong have any idea how bad it looks for the club as a whole? It wasn’t any more fun watching us crash and burn at home to Chelsea with a torrent of whining ingrates streaming down the aisle next to me, or stomping petulantly down my row so I couldn’t even watch the horror unfolding on the pitch in the comfort of my seat. Yes, we were 2-0 down at the time, but we’d completely outplayed them and could have come back if they had some fans worth putting on a show for. There’s a lot of so-called Gooners who don’t deserve a club with this kind of history.

Let’s put things into perspective: ours is an extremely young team, which has been put together in light of Chelsea’s newfound, dubiously-sourced wealth and the costs of building one of the biggest stadiums in the world in a country which gladly fosters an extortionate service industry. We knew things were going to be difficult, and we’ve been lucky to find the likes of Fabregas, Toure and Clichy for pennies. Arshavin pointed out a few weeks ago that Man U went through a transition period without winning anything, and look at them now; that will be us if the players stick together. Secondly, we have had some incredible misfortune with injuries – Rosicky completely missed out and Eduardo lasted about five minutes, Fabregas and Walcott were out for half the season, and there were long-term injuries to Almunia, Clichy, Gallas, van Persie and Adebayor, most of which coincided with the season-defining Champions League and FA Cup semi-finals. The younger players drafted in as replacements – particularly Gibbs, Djourou and Bendtner – have worked their arses off and deserve much more support, especially when they have to atone for the ineptitude of team-mates like Silvestre.

I suppose if I’m going to talk about the atmosphere at the Emirates, I have to mention the boo boys. While I felt terrible for Eboue after the way he was treated for his mistakes in the Wigan game, and the fans’ disapproval should never reach the extent to which a whole stadium is ridiculing their own player and ironically cheering his removal from the pitch, I can accept that it’s only fair for loyal fans – who have forked out more on 90 minutes that they could have seen neatly summarised on TV than they have on food for the week – to be allowed to voice their opinions when their expectations aren’t being met, so long as they’re being reasonable and not baying like bloodthirsty idiots. Inevitably, Wenger was unhappy with the scattered groans and shouts that have sporadically met poor touches and blown attacks, and he is also right to expect that the players receive more encouragement on an off-day. Obviously, I’d rather hear some sort of passion from the fans than endure the humiliation of a couple thousand opposition fans putting us to shame on our own turf – as long as when I’m at home watching the match on TV I know that there’s actual living people in the stands, not cardboard cut-outs posing as much of a threat to the stewards’ sanity as the usual support. The fans should be driving on the team from the start, not saving their vocal chords to unleash a barrage of abuse when the players are struggling.

There is a subdued, bitter atmosphere at the Emirates which isn’t getting us anywhere, and our team needs the sort of loyal support that the Newcastle fans have given their team throughout their catastrophic campaign. We’ve finally got a stadium that can compete with the likes of Old Trafford; now we need to make it just as intimidating for visiting teams.

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