The frenzy which greeted our defeat on Wednesday night was enough to put any reasonable person off the game for life. I steered clear of the blood letting and the bed wetting because I knew my masters would be cracking the whip and expecting the minimum word count from me this morning. Had I indulged in the orgiastic, self harming, feeding frenzy I know I couldn’t have faced the blog, the match or any of the silly over blown circus ever again.
The way we turn in on ourselves when we have no way of lashing outwards reminds me of my dogs. They spend their days on a giant cushion under the desk at which I am sat. They divide their time between snoozing and cat watch. If a moggie dare shows its face in the back garden they attack the glass conservatory panel with all the impotent fury of a driver giving the finger to the fast disappearing rear lights of a BMW which had dared to overtake.
Once the offending puss has strolled from view with a nonchalant disregard for the distant canine rage the dogs, by now beyond the point of reason, invariably turn on one another and snap and snarl and generally clash teeth and share a lot of drool. Occasionally fur flies but without exception they will eventually settle into their former state, carefully scrutinizing the lawn and fence posts for feline incursions.
I have done the self same thing. I can’t shout at the ref or opposition players, the only football fans I follow are Arsenal fans and the only Arsenal fans I follow are the positive realists. So who else do I have to sink my canines into? Once I’d seen the clear parallel with the dopey mutts beneath my desk I knew it had to stop. So after Wednesday I just faded Cheshire Cat like into the background with nothing but the faint glow of a snarl to betray my presence.
The only thing I can see to do after a defeat is look forward to the next match. The idea of fans falling out with one another over their opinions on our tactical shortcomings is too laughable for words. What on earth do they think their ideas count for? Who with any influence over the players will ever know or care what you or I think about Xhaka’s positional play or whether Walcott’s runs are exploited by his team mates? Who gives a damn what we think? No one who matters, no one with the power to effect practical change.
So I looked forward and closed my eyes and ears to the bellyaching. I looked forward to the next match and for once the fates were kind to us. Ideally we would have played Chelsea but Man City or Liverpool would do. Playing against our direct rivals is the perfect fixture following a defeat. It is a game of such significance as to wipe the memory of an Everton away day clean from the mind. It is, in the popular slang, a six pointer. We have the opportunity to record a famous victory which will make all the histrionics over the Goodison result seem silly in comparison.
Unless of course you believe that we have already fallen too far off the pace and are doomed to watch yet another rival lift the trophy in May. In which case surely you must approach every game in a thoroughly relaxed frame of mind. If it’s already too late to achieve anything positive then we are playing for fun and you can shrug off any loss and chuckle at every win. With nothing riding on the match you have nothing to get het up about have you?
In sport as in life it is vital that we taste the pain of defeat. The bitterness should insult the tongue. It is this experience alone which lends victory its unique piquancy. Should we bring home the three points this afternoon it will be all the sweeter for the context of our midweek disappointment.
Win, lose or draw I just wish there was some way for football fans to rediscover a little equilibrium. It isn’t your career on the line, you are no more invested in this than a bird watcher is in a falcon’s egg. Sure it’s disappointing if the chick gets so far only to fall from the nest, but you get to pack up your binoculars and go home for your tea don’t you? You can stand there and shout at the tiercel for choosing an inadequate nest site if it would make you feel better but really the best you can hope to achieve is attracting strange looks from that nice lady with the RSPB badge on her hat.
The problem with us football fans is we think we’re special. We think our hobby more important than others and that we therefore have a peculiar dispensation to behave like complete pricks when things don’t go our way. It’s chastening to get to fifty three years old and realise that for the last forty six years I have been deluding myself in this as in so many other aspects of my life.
Bad refereeing might be killing the game. TV money might be killing the game. Corruption in FIFA or the FA might be killing the game. But hysterical, bad tempered, self indulgent, childish supporting is also gnawing at the foundations with a quite frightening ferocity. I decided to give it another go today but if we lose and the reaction is as bad as I suspect it will be I’m going to struggle to join in again.
Positively Arsenal 
This is without doubt the finest piece of writing on football and its supporters written this year – and probably ever. It deserves a wider audience.
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Morning Stew
It’s the call of the wild that draws you back, that shackles you to the Arsenal sledge with its occasionally intolerable load and impassable football terrain. Lead dog.
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Absolutely magnificent.
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Great article Steww but I suspect your Gooner genes will remain, come what may. Of course, the fact that one of the clique I referred to after Everton (Atkinson) is performing today will make it that much more difficult…but then victory will taste even sweeter. Keep the faith
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Well that was a wonderful, right up until the kick in the bollocks of the last sentence.
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football, just like your writing, will always be wonderful Steww. The fact that I and many others have let a defeat effect our lives and see the world a little greyer since Tuesday evening is testament to the innacurate importance we attach to game and indeed the Love of all fans for their particular clubs.
Tuesday was made all the worse for the way it happened, we were on form they wern’t, we started well they didnt, we scored in the first twenty minutes they didn’t. So what made the game change so dramactically, was it a ridiculas decision by the ref a sending off or a penalty, was it an amazing bit of skill or luck from the other side or was it a bad injury which disrupted our play? No actually it was just us drifting out of the game, careless passing, hollywood balls, trying to take several players on instead of simple passing. This has happened before and we normally snap out of it with a quick word from Arsene at half time but the second half was no bette.r
So for all the credit given to the fighting spirit of everton from the media actually this was a classic game that WE lost ourselves and thats what hurt me the most and maybe added to the social media reaction from fans other that the usual doomlayden moaners. I cant be sure of this as I too can’t go near the twitterati after a defeat.
Todays game should be different, at no point can I see our players taking this easy. Even when we were 3-0 up against manure and chelski we were totally focased and professional. We have a good record against city and against teams who like to play football generally. We also react well normally and I inspect us to be sharper today,.notice I said sharper and not more up for it as the media would have it.
There is no reason why we shouldn’t come home with a win even though i will be racked with nerves especially as city still are a good side and in de bryune and da silva they have two of the best players in the premier league, fortunatly we have a few of them of our own and as a team. it is a team game after all, I think we are better.
COYG
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Trust George to know what is a kick in the bollocks.
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What brought me back to the game after we saw what happened during those seasons when Eduardo and Ramsey (Wilshere, last season Sanchez and Cazorla, etc.) were hacked off the park? I’ve seen Escape to Victory. In the end it’s not the result that matters, but staying alive (& retaining your humanity).
Friends, physical and virtual, family, and from where I am writing a tiny bit of community too, that’s what brought me back. (And a five minute walk to the ground!). Beyond friendship and good company what do have? What else do we need?
Thanks Steww. Unfortunately I can’t watch the football match today. But Arsenal & City games under Pellegrini and Wenger were the best football matches in the league for the past three years, the period where these matches haven’t been affected by officals intervening with a flurry of strange calls. Unfortunately people are talking about the refs from yesterday’s round of matches more then the football, it’s a terrible situation for the sport to be in and there really is no excusing it, but, well, I thank the football gods for The Arsenal.
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Trust Steww to blow the lid off the tender snowflakes who have bought their worse emotional instincts to supporting a football club. It is a competitive world ffs. There are 19 teams in the EPL hunting our scalp and a well known institutional bias (media, refs) against Arsenal Football Club. We do not have sole monopoly on football wisdom, talent and financial resources. There are other teams who will use any means, fair or foul, to defeat us and our way of playing. But we have done damn well so far. Only two defeats in 16 games is the season average of title winners. Some teams have even lost 4 games midway the season and still win the title. As Steww emphasizes there is no reason for this self-inflicted orgy of tantrums and recriminations. Leave it to the kids, the novices, who barely have a grip on reality.
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One bet I have with a friend is based upon a season long comparison between Sterling and Chamberlian. Unfortunately their agent (they have the same agent) is probably doing the same, which is why he’s been drip dripping Chamberlain stories into the gaping maws of the meedjah with disturbing frequency. Bellerin signing on was great news. We could all tell that he has a bit of class about him, it wasn’t a surprise. Chambo’s agent scares me.
Be interesting to see which of the two from Chambo and Sterling might start today, and how they get on.
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great article steww, for some reason your thoughts on how fans react brought to mind the leicester city fan from a couple of weeks ago who rang bbc 606 after another lcfc defeat, he would not agree that the foxes had in fact overachieved last season by winning the league for the first time, no, it was almost as if it was their god given right, and it was just unacceptable that they were not fighting for the title again this season. that the players who had only just avoided relegation two years ago were on that kind of form again, that Vardy who was this time last year was on an 11 game scoring run, was this season on the same form as two years ago with barely a goal in sight, none of this mattered, this LCFC fan just could not understand why his club were not winning the league again this season. he conceded that if the win the CL then he could forgive their league form.
Now I ask you, why do people react like this to football, as steww says, something we can not actually influence, except when actually at a game roaring on our support of the team, we can talk till we are blue in the face, and we can not right the wrongs of it, we can not change the result, we can not influence the team selection, the tactics, or who is our manager, if we approached any other aspect of our daily lives they way that lcfc fan and so many others approach their support of their football team, we would be considered lunatics.
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Good stuff, Stew.
A working day for me today so hope to find an appropriately timed lull to catch at least some of the game.
Whatever the outcome, by the time I leave work this evening I’ll be fine and looking forward to the next game. It is the only way to be although admittedly it can, sometimes, be a tricky state of mind to achieve.
Worrying does nothing more than affect the worrier. I’m fortunate in that the work I do forces me to leave one thing behind and concentrate solely on the next thing, or matter in hand. It has, over the years, more than reaped rewards when it comes to supporting a football team. Defeats are behind me when I walk away from the stadium, turn the TV or radio off. Being annoyingly up-beat can aggravate others but more often than not, I can force a smile out of the most miserable git post game.
It is nothing more or less than a state of mind. Not always easy to cope with but holding onto the insight that it is no more than that, is the biggest step taken and ultimately the misery will soon be but a fading memory
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Well done, Steww.
I have on a number of occasions said much the same when floating like a 20 stone butterfly hither and thither from blog to blog and refusing (mostly) to rise to the bait and dispute the illogical, short-sighted or down right stupid comments emanating from the supposedly cognoscenti or football literati who populate (infest) many blogs with their sour declarations.
But hold on — my interpretation of what these fans say may simply be confirmation bias on my part, because they are not saying what I believe to be the case.
There are, no doubt, a number of factors involved here. First of all, I am always right, ain’t I — as if — secondly, I do not care too much what others say on blogs. There is, in my mind, a clear division between ‘facts’ and what is ‘true’. Altho ……..
What the hell? you may ask. Well, football is the perfect example of the catalystic compromise between the two. If a fan believes something to be true, then, to him, (them) it is true. And no amount of arguing will change that concept for the fan involved, even if the concept of ‘truth’ is discovered in the sense it is not necessarily, if at all, a ‘fact’.
Whereas ‘facts’ are accepted as concrete realities and no amount of reasoning will change the view of those fans who believe, for example, that “Wenger is rubbish’ or that Arsenal will never win the EPL while he is manager. Geddit?
Umm, so there you have it, or do you? Look philosophy is all well and good – but bollocks to that — who could be bothered to try and reason, rationally, the difference betwixt the two with people who are deaf to the logically distinct nuances discussed — so my stance is not to bother.
I am content in my beliefs, and I am also content to balance that with acceptance of others wishing to disagree, however illogical I think their reasoning is.
Is that what you are saying, Steww, or is this just a boring rationalisation of my rock solid belief that Arsenal are the greatest club in the world, and my love of the club and total support of the team is a philosophical fantasy?
A rhetorical question, I hope!! (lol)
[Now you can see the real difference between your crystal clear and classic erudition and my lumbering prose!] (lol)
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Liking Jack this afternoon – good to see the benefit of regular football and being fit
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I suppose a more intelligent person than me, would have added to the above that the relationship between one side or the other, and the Arsenal, requires a balance between the two which is symbiotic, in as much as the relationship between the two antagonists depends on the core belief in the club, in its various forms, but this is not necessarily beneficial to each side, and the club.
Parasites, for example, have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts, but only the parasite benefits, don’t you know? (lol)
[OK, I promise not to write anymore such drivel in the future – and Steww, it shows why I cannot be trusted to write headline Posts!] (lol)
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Jack is looking very much ‘better’ today, Anicoll, and makes me absolutely sure he must return to the Arsenal. What skill – and his fitness is continuing to improve as you say!
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Arsenal team: Cech, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Xhaka, Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi, Alexis
Arsenal substitutes: Ospina, Holding, Gibbs, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lucas, Giroud
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20161218/team-news-iwobi-back-in-starting-xi#73bbFVdCAR3rHULu.99
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Deserved win for the Saints – a layer of quality above that Bournemouth could produce.
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how the fuck can that senile old french fool pick iwobi over ox, did he not see iwobi have a shot cleared off the line v everton, what the fuck does he be looking at during game when he misses things like that, cunt.
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did man city’s gundogan die or what
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theooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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alexis is limping
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HT: Man City 0-1 Arsenal
Walcott with a well taken goal to give us the lead, some nice bits since, but afc playing it tight
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Coo that is a tight game – great work from Gabby and Kosc so far.
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sane scores to make it 1-1, looked to be just offside, but of course those calls don’t go our way.
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Fecking Neville ‘Kos’s boot plays him onside. Makes it up as he goes along the twat. Looks bloody off to me
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How terribly disappointing to be defending so well and be beaten by an offside goal.
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65 minutes – ox on for iwobi
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that was a shower of shit, monreal and kos had to do better there, and maybe even cech too. 2-1 to city
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Well this is not quite working out as I hoped
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on that second goal, an offside silva tried to get a touch on the ball, does that not mean he was active so goal should not have stood.
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we are all over the place in defense and our midfield is gone,
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now fucking spurs are winning too, we are heading for two rounds of games where every result has gone against us
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ox off injured, elneny on, the ox only lasted 12 minutes.
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15 minutes to recover – just one chance required
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no sign of our fabled spirit and fight, 5 minutes left
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2nd half, 2nd best – I’ve had better afternoons
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And BTW
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CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED
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FT: Man City 2-1 Arsenal
Arsenal were good in the first half, if a bit conservative after we scored a fine goal from walcott,
Sane goal looked offside, just minutes into second half, and the team just did not respond, passing off, team work off, and defending awful, the second goal was terrible defending from especially monreal, and from kos and maybe even cech, but there was also some doubt about it as silva tried to play the ball and he was offside, but as i said we dont get those call, ever.
never looked like scoring in the entire second half. Ozil had a very poor game. Alexis and theo who had been bright in the first half were ineffectual. Giroud made no impact. Ox only lasted 12 minutes before injury forced him off. Midfield was poor. Bellerin is not yet back to his best after injury.
12 league games without a clean sheet for me shows we have problems on the defensive side, and being unable to keep a clean sheet means teams know that it is worth hanging in against us.
Sorry to say it but having thought earlier in the season that we had changed and that this squad was different, sadly its not and we have gone back to being exactly what we were last season, just not good enough when the pressure is on.
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Arsenal now 4th, 9pts off top, and only 1pt above spurs.
two rounds of fixtures where every single result has gone against us, the really annoying thing is that in both of our games we have taken a first half lead, played some great football, and then been unable to respond when the pressure was put on.
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December is the new November.
A very poor week for the club…..and not just at first team level. All results elsewhere against us, failing to defend leads this week, as Ed says, a lack of clean sheets, poor second half sin the last two games with it seems little response, I would also be intrigued to hear Mr Wengers explanation of the substitutions, I don’t mean that disrespectfully, was just a bit puzzled, was Ox really injured?.
To me , it seems we can become quite reliant on key players, and suffer when we lose them. Caz, and I would say Mustafi, not that his replacements have played badly, but perhaps we miss his organisation at the back . The second half performances in the last two games also carry some suggestion of fatigue, but we are not alone in having played a lot of games
Poor weeks happen. At the moment, we do not look like potential champions. I take Wenger at face value, in that he will judge his future on how the team perform come end of season, and if he is wanted. On that basis, and on the way this week has gone, hope they can use this as a bit of a wake up call and respond accordingly, as Wenger teams often do.
Some will lose hope, become abusive, slash wrists or demand that players are returned to the continent of Africa, the media will enjoy this Xmas along with the WOB.
But in reality, this week really has been poor, they need to stop this in its tracks.
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Wenger says both city goals offside, and that letting in the first had a big impact on us physically for 25 minutes, he said second goal was more clearly offside than the first one, but it was offside too. Not happy that we took lead in last two games and that like all season big decisions have gone against us.
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 4m4 minutes ago
We were awful. Didn’t deserve anything from the game. However, in spite of that, City still couldn’t score a valid goal.
Tom Gordon @GoonerGordo 6m6 minutes ago
Not saying we deserved to win that game, but if the officials had done their jobs properly, it would have been 1-0 still.
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NO worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
I shouldn’t joke, but that was a tough one. I took it better than the Everton game, though this was the more disappointing and damaging. The previous loss forced me to try get a grip of my disappointment and think , once more, about what a healthy response is (not really capable of one but at least protracted thinking about it helps). I’d already shifted after that to thinking we were already up against it somewhat and maybe that helped, too.
Feel sad, more than anything. Determined not to dwell on implications et al.
For those who find hysteria and excessive criticism of team and Wenger painful, there is surely only one thing to do in the coming week : avoid, avoid, avoid. Media, social media, any c***s you know.
Hope you all have a good week and aren’t too down about it. Especially those like me who rely too heavily on game for escapism. Once more : avoid,avoid, avoid
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Bitter pill to swallow that !
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mandy I would say that ox was injured, for a couple of minutes before he was subbed off even the commentators were saying he was not running, and it seemed that this was due to an injury.
My worry from our two defeats this week is that our drop physically after we conceded a goal is actually a mental response from the players, a little bit of panic or maybe despondency sets in and this manufactures itself in a major drop in physical levels. I have long felt, that like so many other things that Wenger says, that when he talks up our players mental strength etc, it is actually him trying to convince the players that they have it. Wenger often talks about how difficult it is to get confidence into the team, and how quickly a defeat can take it away. This is for me telling. If the players had real mental strength one defeat, or letting in a goal, would not shake them they way it so often seem to do.
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If Mr Wenger really believes all the big decisions are going against us, and at times , can see why he says that, then he should instruct his CEO on all his committees he sits on to investigate why that is.
I believe we have been on the end of some atrocious decisions in recent months, for instance, no pens since Sept 10, but lots conceded. but today’s offsides looked fractional, and cannot excuse some very poor defending, and a strangely inactive second half performance, just as at Goodison
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Although right now I am so depressed I just want to listen to old slow tempo love songs where the singer has just lost his girl forever I still feel better than the Everton game.
Once again we played poorly in the second half and didn’t look like creating any sort of danger until Oli and Mo came on. We just didn’t win enough of the ball in the second half. I am trying to console myself with the fact that their first goal was offside and although they had total control of midfield they still didn’t create a lot in fact I think despite silva’s presence you have to put the second goal down to goalkeeping error (yes I know the two defenders on Stirling closed him down far to late)
We have been excellent on our travels for so long the manner of these two defeats have hit me hard at a time I really needed some cheer after all that’s what our football team is for to take us away from when reality is kicking us down.
I am trying to take Steve’s advice and look forward after all we have had darker times that have led us to glory it’s just right now I feel shit.
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