Opinon: Does Arsenal have a fan culture problem?

Since the departure of Arsene Wenger, Arsenal has its ups and downs. Now issues have reached a fever pitch, but is the club simply unlucky or does it have a wider fan culture issue?

Towards the end of his reign, Arsene Wenger often commented on the lack of unity and concerted fan support that led to a toxic atmosphere at the Emirates. It’s no secret that as performances and results began to decline, Arsenal fan resentment towards the manager, board, and players grew to cacophonous levels.

The North London club found itself in a completely unique position. The widely held belief that it was time to part ways with arguably the club’s most influential manager created a visceral, nearly tribal clash of opposing sides. No other club could replicate the chaos that Arsenal went through in Wenger’s final years and therefore most fans felt as though once the Frenchman did finally walk away, some semblance of unity and peace would return.

However,15 months into the reign of Unai Emery, Arsenal are once again in a conspicuous nadir of emotion and fan sentiment. The depressing scenes that took dominated headlines from Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace calls into question a myriad of issues surrounding the club.

On one hand, from a strictly footballing point of view, fans have a right to voice their displeasure with the performances on the pitch and subpar results. It is fair to call the manager’s ability to reach the top four and even criticize players when they deserve it. However, the prolonged berating of a particular player or individual associated with the club seems to be an all too common experience at Arsenal.

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Granit Xhaka‘s histrionics on Sunday night, while indefensible, were to an extent unsurprising. Xhaka has been a target of fans’ ire for a good few years now, and the clash between the Swiss midfielder and the Emirates Stadium crowd was the manifestation of an ongoing issue. Unai Emery did Xhaka no favors by playing him out of position, dawdling on the captaincy appointment, shifting the onus of said appointment to the players with a “vote” and most importantly, not dropping the player when his performances have warranted it.

Xhaka has become a pantomime villain for fans to direct their displeasure with all of Emery’s decisions that they disagree with. Therefore for the third game in a row, ironic cheers swelled from the stands as fans sent a message directly to the head coach, in much of the same way that the Ozil singing is meant to make a point as well.

Xhaka’s actions in response were terrible and his position at the club along with the coach seems more untenable than ever. Yet, we as fans must look at why our relationship with players seems to be so convoluted and negative.

Looking at Arsenal’s current squad there aren’t many players who haven’t been subjected to pointed fan backlash, besides newer players. Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding are fan darlings now and for good reason. Before picking up their injuries they were fantastic last season. But in Wenger’s final season a very vocal section of the fanbase would’ve happily forced them out of the club. Even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette were both singled out for falling short against Spurs at different points. Lacazette’s jersey was burned when he missed a chance to draw the Gunners level at Wembley in 2018. Aubemayang was subject to similar treatment when he missed a penalty last season in the North London Derby.

Of course, fans are emotional and can overreact in the heat of a moment. But let’s not forget the recent interview Shkodran Mustafi gave where he described how hard his life at Arsenal has been over the last few seasons. Theo Walcott, Alex Iwobi, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Aaron Ramsey, even Mesut Ozil, to an extent, and of course Emmanuel Eboue, have been subject to fan abuse over the years as well.

Fans will always have a moan at players and managers. There will always be scapegoats and heroes. However, when these issues never seem to subside and only escalate into situations like Sunday night it has to provoke questions from within. Are Arsenal fans to quick to turn on players? Do we as a fanbase have to do better in terms of supporting players even at the worst of times? Or are we simply unlucky and finding it difficult to move forward through this transitional period?

Xhaka was wrong, but so were the fans. Wenger had to leave and Emery is not performing well enough. However, players come and go, the manager will change eventually but the fans are the foundation of the club. We decide what our club stands for and while all of this may simply be an extended “bad patch” it feels as though it is down to the fans to steer the club in a more positive direction.