Arsenal fans pay a lot of money to watch their team. We know this because some of them never stop talking about it.
Mostly, they seem to talk about it to try to excuse their behaviour towards their managers and their players.
Arsenal Man can do what he wants, apparently, because his season ticket is so expensive. If he wants to jeer and boo Granit Xhaka, try to stop him. It is his right.
It is a sad kind of logic. So if you pay for a meal at a fancy restaurant, it entitles you to reduce the waitress to tears? So if you buy a front-row seat in the stalls, it entitles you to yell at the actors and tell them to get the hell off the stage? So if you pay for a room in a nice hotel, it entitles you to scream at the concierge and tell him he should be fired?
It is a dispiritingly dystopian idea but an awful lot of people have signed up to it. Not just Arsenal fans, either, although it ought to be pointed out that they have developed a reputation for producing at the Emirates the most toxic atmosphere in any stadium in the Premier League.
They're No 1 when it comes to picking on their own. At least they're top of the table for something.
To put it another way, they have form. Plenty of it. You'll remember Emmanuel Eboue, I'm sure, and what happened to him. Introduced as a substitute in a home game against Wigan Athletic in 2008, Eboue was then booed mercilessly and as a result he was substituted later in the game.
'I must say, the reaction of the fans here disgusts me,' said Alan Parry on a television commentary at the time. Eboue said later that he had wept at the way he was singled out.
Let's be clear about this: to boo one of your own players is to betray what it should mean to be a fan. It is cruel, it is fickle, it is cowardly and it is self-defeating.
Some Arsenal fans don't rate Xhaka. That's fine. But do they think booing him is going to make him play better? Do they think persistently undermining the captain is going to have a good effect on the rest of the team?
Arsene Wenger, the greatest manager in the club's history, was pilloried at the stadium in his final years at the club. The Emirates has become a strange place to watch football.
The club have finished in the top four in 17 of this century's 20 seasons so it has not exactly been feeding off scraps and yet the stadium is an arena trapped in its seething resentment at lost glories. It is never more than a beat away from rage.
It is because they spend so much to watch their club, it is claimed, that their fans felt wholly justified in booing Xhaka, when he was substituted by Unai Emery in the 61st minute of Arsenal's draw with Crystal Palace last Sunday. By the time he reached the touchline, the jeering coming from all corners of the ground was deafening.
Because Xhaka then had the temerity to gesture angrily at his persecutors and mouth an impolite response, some of the supporters who abused him demanded he apologise.
On Thursday, Xhaka released a statement which expressed some regret for what happened but, quite rightly, stopped short of a full apology. It set the right tone. Because Xhaka has got nothing to apologise for. It is the so-called supporters who should be apologising to him.
Fans like that give it out but they can't take it. They are pathetic. They yell abuse but they are outraged if the person they are abusing stands up for himself. They say Xhaka should be stripped of the armband because he acted improperly. Maybe the fans who were jeering him should be stripped of their season tickets. Because they acted improperly.
So 60,000 people booed and jeered him and Xhaka's the villain because he couldn't hide his distress and his anger? Really? So 'fans' sent him messages wishing cancer on his daughter and making death threats to his wife and yet still the supporters are the ones claiming the moral high ground. We've got this the wrong way round.
Sixty thousand bullies turning on one man and it's that man who should say sorry? Sixty thousand people humiliating one man to the point where one of his team-mates was moved to tears at his treatment and it's Xhaka who should back down? I don't think so.
Arsenal Man and his pals say that Xhaka should be able to take the abuse because he's so well paid. It is a variation on the horrible, merciless idea of privileged pain. He's paid to be ridiculed, apparently.
He's paid to watch his wife and child be subjected to vile comments? Comes with the territory. And the wage packet. That's what some Arsenal fans say. The reality is different.
(Last part in comment below)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7643179/Cruel-cowardly-Arsenal-supporters-booing-captain-betraying-means-fan.html
Does Mr Oliver Holt have a point? Or anybody working for the Mail a big fat no?
Daily Mail rips into Arsenal fans
posted on 3/11/19
comment by Lexington 125.2 (U8879)
posted 1 hour, 4 minutes ago
One thing’s for sure... it’s highly unlikely any Arsenal supporters will be sending Xhaka death threats demanding he stays.
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posted on 3/11/19
comment by Lexington 125.2 (U8879)
posted 1 hour, 19 minutes ago
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/10/22/liverpool-made-massive-mistake-backing-luis-suarez-2011-racism/amp/
Remember how all the Liverpool fans on here also backed Suarez. But yeah sure, a bit of booing is worse than racism...
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A lot of Liverpool fans on the forum did give Evra grief even though Suarez was found guilty of racism.
posted on 3/11/19
comment by CrouchEndGooner (U13531)
posted 11 minutes ago
comment by Lexington 125.2 (U8879)
posted 1 hour, 4 minutes ago
One thing’s for sure... it’s highly unlikely any Arsenal supporters will be sending Xhaka death threats demanding he stays.
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posted on 3/11/19
Liverpool support their players and don't boo them in the stadium. It is one of the reasons why we have some great comebacks with mediocre players like Traore, Biscan in the past.
Sometimes our support goes too far in supporting players in the case of Suarez.
posted on 3/11/19
let's have it right there's caaants at all clubs
some will boo some won't
the vile people that wished cancer on xhaka's daughter are low life
xhaka may not be a great player but he puts in a shift
i hate seeing eriksen just strolling round for us and just want him gone if he wants out
i wish him well because of the performances he has given us in the past tho
posted on 3/11/19
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 3/11/19
Mr. Holt is right.
Seems like people can't even put their knives away long enough to wish our manager a Happy 48th Birthday.
Feliz cumpleaños, Unai.
posted on 3/11/19
What a load of bull sheit by Holt
posted on 3/11/19
Problem at Arsenal is that when the fans are clearly disgrunted with something, the club does nothing to change it. Whereas at other clubs, players are sold, dropped, not made facking captain before this kind of crap boils over.
This odd association with Liverpool always backing their players simply isn't true. Can remember both Rodgers and Mignolet getting boo's. Ironic cheers everytime Mignolet saved a shot at one point
posted on 4/11/19
comment by RonAlvinho - Victoria Concordia Pathetic (U6117)
posted 11 hours, 8 minutes ago
Problem at Arsenal is that when the fans are clearly disgrunted with something, the club does nothing to change it. Whereas at other clubs, players are sold, dropped, not made facking captain before this kind of crap boils over.
This odd association with Liverpool always backing their players simply isn't true. Can remember both Rodgers and Mignolet getting boo's. Ironic cheers everytime Mignolet saved a shot at one point
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Good comment