In May 2023, I wrote a blog called “Thank you for the fun time” about the burgeoning atmosphere I have experienced at Emirates over the past two years. Arsenal were a bright young team with a talented young manager riding the crest of a wave. Although the shine wore off in the 2022-23 season, supporters felt fully united behind this exciting upstart team.
One of the central teachings of Buddhism concerns the impermanence of both life itself and heightened emotional states. As humans, euphoria, pain, and sadness all eventually fade (if not completely disappear) and we have a built-in balance, a mental balance that frees us from those states. Rebuild. A popular Italian phrase that sums this up is “Tutto Passa” or “All things pass.”
In the aforementioned column in May 2023, I wrote that “Arsenal will be different next season”. Different expectations mean the atmosphere is a little different and the emotions that arise from it are all different. All of this is natural and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just an evolution of the human condition. ”
Attempts to diagnose the poor atmosphere at home games this season and artificial solutions such as chasing away fans from the upper echelons (against Premier League rules anyway) were wrong in my view. I think the concerns about Arsenal’s style of play are similar. I think fans are simpler creatures (I think so too). The style of play is exactly the same as it was at the end of last season.
In short, our preferred “style of play” is winning. The “styles of play” we don’t like are draws and losses. I think it’s more important to consider whether that style will help the team get better results. But in terms of atmosphere, I don’t think there’s an aesthetic element to it. sorry. The atmosphere changed as we changed and moved into a different emotional state of expectation, pressure and frustration.
The pressure of playing against a team like Manchester City, who are having the second-best season in history statistically but are still not good enough, is honestly annoying. It makes us irritated, and when we’re irritated, we’re more likely to succumb to frustration and outbursts. Of course, that frustration is compounded by the fact that Manchester City are collapsing this season and Arsenal probably won’t take advantage of that.
Liverpool are having a typically spectacular season with City, but the level of competition this season hasn’t changed, it’s just the name of the competition. Objectively speaking, considering they’ve struggled with the Manchester City machine for years, given everything City has taken from them over the past eight years or so, Liverpool would probably take this opportunity to blow up City. You deserve to benefit from it.
But that’s not our concern. Our frustration was compounded by injuries to key players and the feeling that the referees weren’t smart enough to judge anything other than the story. And the stories swirling around Arsenal are rarely good or uplifting. Manchester City lost Rodri to a serious injury and are currently sixth in the Premier League and 22nd in the Champions League standings.
It seems widely accepted that Rodri’s absence was a factor in their surprising demise. However, a serious injury to their best player doesn’t seem to factor into the discussion at all, as Arsenal are yet to put a major trophy on the sideboard. The negative atmosphere, especially when it comes to the perception of wasting time, has also had a huge impact on Arsenal’s play, with Premier League referees very easily swayed and highly motivated to rule by the headlines. It appears to be.
On Sunday, Altai Bindil took his sweet time with every goal kick without once raising the referee’s eyebrows. On Wednesday, Simon Hooper was wagging a cheeky finger at David Raya even before the ball went into touch. He also cautioned Miles Lewis-Skelly for being forced off the pitch. It’s extremely annoying and adds to the sense of unfairness, which is also baked into the fact that everyone feels Arsenal are approaching absolute elite level with big shiny trophies on their sideboards.
It was only natural that the atmosphere became even more sinister, and that was entirely to be expected. My May 2023 column was not a kind of prophecy, but a completely predictable observation about the human experience. But I think we need to take a step back and have some perspective. The City lost one of its key cogs and was completely and completely torpedoed.
When Mo Salah returned from the AFCON last season with a severe hum, Liverpool collapsed during the run-in. Injuries to the best players really suck, and there are few ways to avoid them. Mo Salah has directly contributed to just over a third of Liverpool’s league goals this season. If his hamstring suffers the same fate as Bukayo Saka, Liverpool have no replacement for him. That’s not possible.
All things considered, Arsenal have dealt with injuries much better than Manchester City and are currently better than Liverpool (who have finished third twice and fifth once since 2018). Of course, that doesn’t invalidate all criticism of Arsenal and Mikel Arteta. It’s not like the team was perfect before the injury, especially offensively.
That doesn’t mean the approach or “style” is completely above reproach. All of them require analysis, discussion, and criticism. This also applies to every other team that has ever existed. The Invincibles were without a backup right-back. In the event of Lauren’s injury, Kolo Toure would slide into right-back, with Cygan joining the team. Luckily, Lauren was pretty durable at that stage of her career. There is no perfect team or perfect style.
If Thierry Henry had torn his hamstring in December 2003, not only would Arsenal not have remained unbeaten, they would not have won the league either. Every team in history has relied uniquely on its best attacker. At the end of the day, if you take a step back, Arsenal are a really good team and remain in a very good position for the next few years. There is work to be done, but we don’t need to do any major work right now.
I’ve been finding it really hard to connect with the vitriol online lately. If you squint every now and then, you can see how people, especially young men, are becoming radicalized on the internet in a variety of more serious ways. It’s so easy to sit with other people spiraling, whisking, whisking, and spiraling, whisking, whisking. When your anger builds, you want answers and want the person who offended you to punish you.
This space of anger is usually filled by fraudsters and populists who stoke the fires to pursue their own interests. From an Arsenal perspective, I found the ferocity very difficult to comprehend. I try not to be too judgmental about the way people vent their frustrations, but I honestly feel that it’s both noteworthy and unrecognizable.
Arsenal aren’t perfect. Despite the criticism and scrutiny, Arsenal remain a really good team with a really good core of players who have aged well. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re taking the future for granted. That’s why I felt it was so important to clear that bad air and turn down the volume, even if only temporarily, on Wednesday night.
“Tonight it felt like the silent majority got their team back,” he said on the NLD Instant Reaction podcast, leaving the pay line to his Arsenal Vision podcast colleague Clive Palmer. Pensiveness can sometimes lead to silence, but Arsenal still have a team worth shouting about.
