Be Supporters

The atmosphere at the Emirates has never been fantastic. It has afforded us great nights in the shape of our Champions League encounters, London Derbies and old rivalries. But when the teams we face are considered inferior the atmosphere often hangs on a knife edge.

Such was the case yesterday where emotions were riding high after a 6-0 maulling against Chelsea. The Arsenal faithful were expecting an immediate response agaisnt a side who are cruising along in midtable.

What really gets to me is the fact that people just expect a dominant Arsenal performance. The premier league is the best league in the world for a reason and that is because any team on their day is capable of causing an upset.

To jump all over the players, to boo them off at half time (and yes there were a considerable number of 'fans' boo'ing) isn't going to make them play any better. In fact it is more likely to have the opposite effect and cause our players to play within themselves, fearul of taking someone on or making an incisive pass incase it loses us possession and the baying crowd strike again.

We tend to lose sight of the fact that the players are just ordinary men, extraordinarily talented with a football at their feet, but ultimately just a group of blokes who are running around a football pitch. Their glamorous lifestyles, media exposure and vast wages create a boundary between them and the fans that must be ignored come matchday.

Imagine the players were your friends, sons, fathers would you boo them off the field when they'd had a bad start to the game?

We are here to support the team. Support being a word which implies lifting morale when the chips are down. It's no good deriding the players, slagging off the club and the manager all throughout the first half and then when we go 2-1 ahead start singing Arsenal songs with tears in your eyes arm-in-arm with your best mate.

It's actually quite worrying how fickle we have become the last couple of seasons. Week in week out the public opinion of Wenger changes, one week the fans behind me converge on how shit Giroud is, then the next bemoan Wenger for not playing him over Sanogo or Podolski.

If you think the players have been inconsistent this season you should hear some of the fans I sit next to. This is a reciprocal relationship, we make the team play better by supporting them no matter what and in return those performances make us feel like supporting the side with greater enthusiasm.

This is an example of how the fans' frustration over transfer policy, high ticket prices, and focus on finishing in the top four over winning a trophy is being vented in the wrong places. The team are there to play, picked as part of a squad of players. It's no point boo'ing if someone makes a poor pass. Boo the board, write letters, stage protests, incite an action to re-evaluate our spending policy but we must all support the players week in week out as a way to hold on to some semblance of what our great club used to be and still can be.

Our analysis of yesterday's match coming soon...

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