Fans lack of support and team’s impotency driving me berserk
Almost as disappointing as the prospect of dropping more, potentially crucial points, against yet another patently inferior outfit and the likelihood that Man United were about to leapfrog us, was the mood amongst our crowd when Middlesbrough took an unexpected lead, with just about their one and only worthwhile counter-attack during the first half.
It winds me up something rotten, when the same fans who sit on their overpriced seats, silently waiting for victory to fall into their laps, without being prepared to work for it (sadly, much like the majority of our team), suddenly find their voices, in order to vocalise their utter and all too ugly contempt for the very same players who’s arses they were prepared to kiss only a couple of weeks back.
I was no less angry at the way in which we’d been passively prodding the ball around the edge of the Boro penalty area during the early stages, expecting an opening to be offered on a plate, with Matty Flamini just about the only Arsenal player demonstrating the sort of drive and intensity necessary to force the issue — it was therefore no surprise that the Flamster earned the most money for Sport Relief this weekend, covering more ground than any Premier League player, as the league’s most industrious grafter.
I never imagined too much self-belief could be a problem, or perhaps we’re seeing a touch of complacency, or arrogance raising its ugly head. But despite our domination of possession in much of the past four games, we’ve appeared somewhat impotent until we’ve gone a goal behind. For some reason we seem unable to applyourselves from the opening whistle, with the same sort of fervour we’ve witnessed in the closing stages, when we’ve grown increasingly desperate to avoid dropping points.
It will be no surprise if we end up sharing the spoils in a nervous contest next Sunday, with both teams too afraid of losing to risk too much – a flagrant fate tempting effort to ensure I’m proved entirely wrong, by a thoroughly successful goalfest! I’m confident we’re capable of raising our game and more than holding our own at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford.
Yet for us to continue to have a say when it comes to the Premier League prize-giving in May, Arsène needs to find a means to inspire the sort of vim and vigour from his troops, to be able to subjugate the lesser footballing mortals from the first minute to the last, by bringing their San Siro style ‘A’ game (where A stands for application), to more mundane encounters against the likes of Bolton, Everton and Sunderland.
In addition to the inappropriate outbursts of the fickle few, what I found equally annoying was that as Saturday’s game wore on and it began to appear increasingly likely that the title race was slipping from our grasp, instead of joining me, as I jumped incessantly from my seat to urge our lot not to accept our apparent fate, it was as if the entire stadium was enveloped by an air of resignation.
I don’t know how anyone can leave before the last kick of such a delicately balanced contest, especially when we were going for it with ‘all guns blazing’. The trickle, which rapidly develops into a torrent of those trying the beat the queues at the death, isn’t particularly encouraging. You can’t help wondering if they know something we don’t. But then we’ve witnessed enough last gasp goals this season to know better.
I was at the hospital bedside of a dying pal during the week. The doctor didn’t expect him to survive after he took a dramatic turn for the worse and a female priest who appeared on the ward asked if his wife wanted her to say a prayer. Laurie’s condition was so critical that it felt more like the Last Rites. But I will never again pooh, pooh the power of prayer, as I was flabbergasted by the miraculous way in which he’d rallied the following day.
However I was a little gutted, as if I’d known the nun had a direct line to the Almighty, I would’ve asked her to put in an increasingly necessary good word for the Gunners!
* goonersdiary.blogspot.com
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