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Where did this all begin - are we to blame?

Finney Is Back said:
That's not true.... I was there when we lost 5-2 after being two nil up and that was REALLY poisonous when we were 2-0 up. Walcott in particular getting an absolute shed load of abuse. Additionally I was there (through gritted teeth) as a corporate host when they lost to Villa at the start of last season and I haven't heard anything like that at the lane since the days of Christian Gross (and remember this was their fans getting on the back of by far their most successful ever manager!).
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Well I've not been to the Emirates for a Goon game but from what I hear on the TV , they're louder ( bigger crowd ? ) than us and they generally sing their ****e songs a lot more than we do ours.

More of their fans believe in their team than ours do , understandably so . I have a couple of Gooners in my extended family that go to watch their games and they say that large swathes of their fans, always believe that they will get an equaliser or a winner in injury time and cheer their team on to do it .
 
scaramanga said:
How many of our team can he haul off? I can only think of Rose and maybe Lamela (attacking only) that gave it a real go yesterday.

Of course the manager needs to be getting the players motivated, but this has been a problem for a long time for us - since the early days of Redknapp.
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He can haul 3 off..... although of course it makes sense to save one sub in case of an injury.... Surely in the event of such an inept performance the two players giving the least in terms of effort (Capoue and Chadli IMO) should get hooked at half time. Perhaps the embarrassment of that would result in no player having the temerity to play with a lack of motivation again?
 
DublinSpur said:
You say the obsession with champs league is partly to blame for the decline in the passion of fans, and there may well be some truth in that. But then you suggest we deliberately under-perform in order to help our chances of champs league qualification. Don't you see how that represents the ultimate champs league obsession?
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No more that I think we are unable to combine the two till we get the extra revenue that champs league provides, what I would advocate is a long term approach. Not really caring about league results if it meant we bedded in a couple of youth players (Velkovic, Bentaleb) got our potential world class players like Lamela and Eriksen in their best form. While setting out a style of play which all the team would be used to.

Then the following season with no European football I feel we could easily reach 4th and with a little luck and a proper striker which we have not had since Berbatov we could even look at a title winning season.

I take the approach that to achieve great success you sometimes after write off seasons or be content in the knowledge you take a longer time approach it is done in many other sports from motor racing, rugby, cycling and from what I am told as I do not follow it cricket. Where they try to build teams up over a couple of years so they are capable of winning the ashes which is apparently matches against the Australians.
 
Finney Is Back said:
He can haul 3 off..... although of course it makes sense to save one sub in case of an injury.... Surely in the event of such an inept performance the two players giving the least in terms of effort (Capoue and Chadli IMO) should get hooked at half time. Perhaps the embarrassment of that would result in no player having the temerity to play with a lack of motivation again?
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Problem with that is taking off Chadli removes our goal threat as he's been doing Ade's job for him. Taking Capoue off leaves us with no real DM as we don't have Sandro.

Anyway - that's more for a tactics thread....
 
wiziwig said:
Well I've not been to the Emirates for a Goon game but from what I hear on the TV , they're louder ( bigger crowd ? ) than us and they generally sing their ****e songs a lot more than we do ours.

More of their fans believe in their team than ours do , understandably so . I have a couple of Gooners in my extended family that go to watch their games and they say that large swathes of their fans, always believe that they will get an equaliser or a winner in injury time and cheer their team on to do it .
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I think that is a different point. The Arsenal fans will get behind a good performance from the team, but are even more poisonous than us when it comes to witnessing a poor performance (and I have given two real life examples above that were worse than anything I have heard at the lane - even when getting tonked 5-0 by victims last season, etc). The Arsenal fans are just lucky that they don't have to witness as many poor performances as we do.

The Arsenal fans believe they will turn it around because their team also believe it and never give up.... Contrast the Arsenal team's reaction to going behind in any game to our reaction yesterday. Arsenal go behind and immediately they up their tenacity and the pace that they play at. We carried on in exactly the same way yesterday until perhaps the last 5 or 6 minutes. If Arsenal are still losing with 6 or 7 minutes to go Wenger will insruct a centre half to also move up front. We didn't create any such pressure yesterday.

If the Arsenal fans watched a team going through the motions when behind like ours was yesterday, then their reaction would be far worse than our smattering of boos at the full time whistle yesterday, believe me!
 
jimmyb said:
It's getting close to the point for me that I call it a day.

And it's got little to do with the team or the futility of fighting for fourth (at best) every season or the cost of a season ticket. It's got everything to do with the fans. There is an absence of atmosphere if there isn't a poisonous atmosphere. There is no sense of a shared passion in the crowd any more. No joy. No humour. No solidarity. No defiance.

Just apathy or anger.
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Too true. Our socalled 'fans' have become disillusioned over the years, demanding CL-football and top performances week in, week out.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this 1882-movement needs to be given a permanent space/block at the stadium for every game. Maybe they could get more people singing along.
 
scaramanga said:
Problem with that is taking off Chadli removes our goal threat as he's been doing Ade's job for him. Taking Capoue off leaves us with no real DM as we don't have Sandro.

Anyway - that's more for a tactics thread....
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Chadli offered zero goal threat yesterday. Capoue was not doing anything that a defensive midfielder should've been doing. Both of those players had those roles in name only.... If it's not working (and not working as clearly as it was not working yesterday) then surely it has to be changed.

Anyway - let's see if there are wholesale changes for the game at The Emirates next weekend. I'll have the pleasure of attending the game.... Can't wait! 8-[
 
Finney Is Back said:
I think that is a different point. The Arsenal fans will get behind a good performance from the team, but are even more poisonous than us when it comes to witnessing a poor performance (and I have given two real life examples above that were worse than anything I have heard at the lane - even when getting tonked 5-0 by victims last season, etc). The Arsenal fans are just lucky that they don't have to witness as many poor performances as we do.

The Arsenal fans believe they will turn it around because their team also believe it and never give up.... Contrast the Arsenal team's reaction to going behind in any game to our reaction yesterday. Arsenal go behind and immediately they up their tenacity and the pace that they play at. We carried on in exactly the same way yesterday until perhaps the last 5 or 6 minutes. If Arsenal are still losing with 6 or 7 minutes to go Wenger will insruct a centre half to also move up front. We didn't create any such pressure yesterday.

If the Arsenal fans watched a team going through the motions when behind like ours was yesterday, then their reaction would be far worse than our smattering of boos at the full time whistle yesterday, believe me!
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I do believe you and that's why I said 'understandably so' because our team is not as good as theirs. Their history in retrieving lost causes is up their with the best and that's why their fans are generally more vocal in their support for their team than, than we are of ours.
 
The level of performance that is deemed "unacceptable" varies from club to club though.

I think we have more cases of people ****ging off players they don't like than **** for example. They're more focused on Wenger losing the plot, while we have a considerable number who are just waiting for their pre-selected hate objects to misplace a pass.
 
Jordinho said:
The level of performance that is deemed "unacceptable" varies from club to club though.

I think we have more cases of people ****ging off players they don't like than **** for example. They're more focused on Wenger losing the plot, while we have a considerable number who are just waiting for their pre-selected hate objects to misplace a pass.
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I agree with you here. Rose is a good example. He has probably been our best player this season (certainly was yesterday) has improved defensively, been a real threat going forward and is now clearly working harder for the team - and yet there are still a lot of Spurs fans who **** him off at any opportunity.

I fear that Paulinho will be another like this.... No matter what he does now he will not be accepted and fans are looking for an excuse to get on his back before he has even done anything wrong.
 
nerdved said:
The clubs you mentioned are either underperforming massively wrt their squads (United), or performing slightly below par wrt their squads (the other three). They are winning because the talent at their disposal far eclipses anything the likes of us can hope to field.

At the moment, we are also underperforming even when taking the quality of player material into account. Now, why is that? Proably a number of factors. But to rule out the effect of a toxic stadium atmosphere is just stupid. Why make excuses for **** support? I don't get it.
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Where did I rule it out? It's equally stupid and lazy just to blame the support when there are other factors. Like not being able to break teams down who come to defend. Or not having a plan B, or the manager making bad substitutions, the crowd plays no part in those things.
 
Gutter Boy said:
To me it began with Redknapp's appointment. At the time he was both an unpopular figure and a signal of reduction (any port in a storm was the tag at the time).

He may have won some round over time, but I don't think we've ever been close to united around a manager since.

I do think Poch will get there actually - principally because he's an excellent coach, a bit of an intellectual and a #decentbloke, which kind of ticks everyone's box.
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You must have missed the 5-0 demolition of Saudi Sportswashing Machine under Redknapp. There were NO negative reaction whatsoever at the ground when he was appointed, just from spoilt brats on football forums who wanted some fancy, big name foreigner to replace the last fancy big name foreigner who died on his ****.
 
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Jurgen the German said:
Yeah that's the point really. I don't see our fans as being any worse than the teams I mentioned. Have you been to Stamford Bridge?
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i have.

i think a better comparison would be with sides which are in and around our position who have the same targets - Everton for example.

what i find strange is when it's supporters talking about the atmosphere it's pretty much unanimously agreed that it's terrible these days asides from the big games where everyone is up for it - the second someone involved with the club points it out and says it's having a negative effect on the team - people heel turn and try and defend it. can't really have it both ways
 
billyiddo said:
i have.

i think a better comparison would be with sides which are in and around our position who have the same targets - Everton for example
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I've not been to Goodison, but from all accounts, their atmosphere isn't the best either.

There's no doubt we are amongst the worst and most deluded/spoilt. But a lot of people seem to be pinning the blame for these poor performances solely on that, to me, it runs deeper than that.

How comes we still managed to stick 4 past QPR if the atmosphere is that bad? If that atmosphere was the only reason, then we wouldn't win any home games.
 
Jurgen the German said:
I've not been to Goodison, but from all accounts, their atmosphere isn't the best either.

There's no doubt we are amongst the worst and most deluded/spoilt. But a lot of people seem to be pinning the blame for these poor performances solely on that, to me, it runs deeper than that.

How comes we still managed to stick 4 past QPR if the atmosphere is that bad? If that atmosphere was the only reason, then we wouldn't win any home games.
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i don't think they are, i think that's being overblown by people being defensive - i don't think Pochettino blamed the fans as such, just said the atmosphere has a negative impact and contributes, which IMO is fair enough and is what what a lot of people are agreeing with.

do you agree with the notion that the crowd can be the 12th man on occasion?
 
Jurgen the German said:
I've not been to Goodison, but from all accounts, their atmosphere isn't the best either.

There's no doubt we are amongst the worst and most deluded/spoilt. But a lot of people seem to be pinning the blame for these poor performances solely on that, to me, it runs deeper than that.

How comes we still managed to stick 4 past QPR if the atmosphere is that bad? If that atmosphere was the only reason, then we wouldn't win any home games.
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I don't think anyone is pinning the blame solely on the fans. Just that the fans might have a small part to play; and given that it's the one part that we - as fans - can actually control, then maybe we should try to address it. That's all I'm reading here in the most part.
 
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