Arsenal: Shkodran Mustafi story significant

Shkodran Mustafi has talked extensively about his experience when facing criticism and abuse from the Arsenal fans. His story is significant.

Can a fan criticise their team? It is an increasingly pertinent question. In the make-up of modern football, with Fan TVs springing up all around, blogs like this one producing content about teams, an increasingly intense and loud debate around the qualities of players and the progress of teams, and a greater understanding of the average football fan, there is a growing desire to criticise.

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Amongst all of this is the explosive catalyst of social media. In days before Twitter, fans would share their criticisms of their players in the pubs. It would never reach the ears of those they questioned and critiqued. Now, that is very much not the case.

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As Arsenal players have experienced more than most, social media can be a horrible place to be. It has great power to inspire and ignite, but it can also be ferociously negative. And for people whose every move is being watched and scrutinised by millions of people, the world of social media is rarely a positive one.

This week, Shkodran Mustafi conducted an extensive interview with Arsenal Player in which he discusses the criticism that he has faced for his mistake-riddled performances, how he handles it in training and matches, and the impact that it has on his own state of mind. What he had to say on social media was especially powerful:

"“Social media is difficult to handle when things are going well and then when things are not working out it’s even tougher <…> Then when things aren’t going well, obviously you don’t like the stuff you read. You don’t agree with a lot of comments, so it makes it difficult. It’s so much easier when things are going well because when you’re reading comments you don’t like, you have to go out and play and you’ve got those comments in your head.”"

Mustafi, of course, is not the only player to suffer abuse on social media. Granit Xhaka suspended comments on his Instagram in the summer before telling supporters to ‘f*ck off’ as the heated relationship between the club captain and the supporters boiled over. Hector Bellerin regularly receives abuse for his interests outside of football, especially fashion, while Mesut Ozil, Alexandre Lacazette, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and now Nicolas Pepe regularly receive critical replies and comments to their social media posts.

As a supporter and member of society, it is important to consider how we talk to one another, stranger or friend, superstar footballer or no-name fan. Trolls are precisely that, odorous creatures who live under bridges waiting for their next victim, usually an unsuspecting figure who has made an innocent mistake and is no self-examining every part of themselves because of it.

But this does not mean that criticism is not valid. It is. A fan deserves to hold an opinion, and to even state that opinion, in certain circumstances. But there is a context and manner that this should be conducted, and football fans often miss this. They target their criticisms at a specific individual, they comment on personal stories and social media posts, they tag them in their own tweets. This is where criticism turns into abuse.

Mustafi’s experience of abuse and criticism is significant. It shows the natural and beautiful frailties of the human spirit, the ferocious impact that abuse that can have, and the role of a ‘supporter’. It is something that all football fans could learn a thing or two from.