Across the Premier League campaign thus far we have witnessed the vociferous and bouncing Britannia to the solemn and lifeless interior of the Emirates to the dissenting Stamford Bridge during Villas-Boas tenure to the groans and sighs of the Kop at yet another underwhelming home draw. Every Premier League campaign is a journey and for every grand victorious day, there is usually a dark and depressing one to come later on down the line. Football support is all about backing your team no matter what the circumstance; win, lose or draw. After all, if there were no supporters, there would be no spectacle and the people that come and watch every week are distinctively the most important people at a football club.
With every season, there are spells where it is hard to watch and your feeling of attachment is stretched to breaking point with successive defeats and then recoiled back to normal with a rectifying win; whether it is the Jekyll & Hyde season of Arsenal or whether you truly believed AVB was hard done by and the man for the job long-term, even though you knew his results weren’t good enough at the time. Or maybe, there is no such recoil in the case of Wolves and their dire season whereby it has been hard to smile at all, let alone get down to Molineux and back the team during hard times and a terrible run of defeats.
If we revisit the comments of Samir Nasri in the summer; surrounding the criticism of the Emirates Stadium’s atmosphere and lack of a ‘special’ ambience, is it really the crowds job to be inspiring and entertaining the team or should these merits be the onus of the players in wowing their watching public?
Following his move to Manchester City in the summer, Samir Nasri told the press
‘Arsenal have good fans but they are not that passionate since they moved from Highbury to the Emirates. The crowd at City are amazing and that’s what you want as a player – a good atmosphere’.
Of course, football fans are human beings and as they represent the paying public, they are largely reactive to the events they witness on the pitch. In an immediate and expectant society, it is the sad, yet unfortunate truth that at underwhelming big clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, the fans are likely to cheer when it’s going well and boo when it’s going badly. That’s just the way it is I’m afraid. In a monetary sense, football fans pay a lot of money to come to matches, thus they have substantial means to negotiate the freedom of speech tact in rubbishing or singling out bad performances when they feel is necessary. On the contrary, it is a footballers right to play the game as their chosen occupation; therefore players must understand their job encompasses what could be deemed the unwritten rules in entertaining, being a role model and not deceiving their spectators.
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In a parallel or metaphorical universe of course, the fans would be giving enough loyal and vocal support as merited by the impressive performance of the team in a unified and collective sense but we have witnessed just when the team-fan relationship can come off the rails. For example, the nervous atmospheres at Stamford Bridge and Anfield this term have only served to transmit to the pitch with groans and sighs at misplaced passes and defensive errors have only hampered the confidence and form of several players. Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson have particularly suffered at Liverpool and Fernando Torres continues to represent the great pretender at Chelsea.
Similarly, Arsenal went on to lose at home to Manchester United after widespread dissent filled the terraces at Arsene Wenger’s decision to substitute the impressive Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The Gunners fans were certainly inspired by the 18-year-olds performance but were baffled by the management team’s decision to withdraw the youngster.
Of course, it is nice to be cheered along and for Samir Nasri and other pros, surely it only helps the cause, but footballers must realise that sport is entertainment, and if the watching fans aren’t satisfied, the inevitable ‘getting on the back of the players’ argument holds some validity.
We have seen in recent years that teams such as Stoke City and Portsmouth have had louder support than most with their Britannia Stadium and Fratton Park homes representing intimidating cauldrons. With teams such as this experiencing the battle of the mid-table, it would be fair to surmise they simply are content to be embracing Premier League football and see where it takes them. With less expectant fan bases, the problem of more fickle support is less of a problem, with constant packed out attendances and relentless chanting most definitely helping the team along its way. After all, managers time and time again point to Stoke as a difficult fixture to negotiate with the Britannia’s fortress-like qualities.
In the case of the traditionally bigger clubs however, the dilemma rumbles on with a larger onus on the players to satisfy and inspire their supporters with bigger ticket fees, expectations and prestige setting the tone. So just who inspires who? Do fans inspire players or do players inspire fans? You decide.
What is your outlook on this dilemma? I’d like to know @ http://twitter.com/Taylor_Will1989
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