Why aren't Arsenal fans having fun? Premier League title nerves, external noise and the terminally online world around Mikel Arteta's team originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
"Arsenal fans, let me tell you something – enjoy this," said Ian Wright, beaming into his phone camera. "The celebration police will be out in force. Do not get nicked. Enjoy yourselves. Football is about moments and this is a big moment. Enjoy it!"
Wright, Arsenal's former all-time leading goalscorer and terrace hero of the 1990s, had captured the moment. The full-time scenes at Emirates Stadium after Tuesday's 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid to seal a place in the Champions League final were ones of unfettered joy. And rightly so. Mikel Arteta had battled past and outlasted one of the toughest two-leg assignments in European football to reach the showpiece match for a second time in their history and the first time in 20 years.
We are in an age where a select few club greats of the biggest clubs in England have an unofficial role as perma-spokespeople, forever gauging and sometimes setting the temperature of a fanbase. It felt notable, therefore, that Wright explicitly told Arsenal fans to enjoy themselves, as if this wasn't a given.
And, who really cares about the "celebration police". These moments that Wright, correctly, says football and sport are all about, are for you and your fellow supporters. Who cares what everyone else thinks?
Well, quite a lot of Arsenal fans, it seems. A cursory scroll of social media (not the best barometer, don't worry, we'll get into this) reveals a concern with various external factors, from unfair media coverage to – at the outer fringes – wild refereeing conspiracy theories taking in people who, frankly, should know much better. The vibe at some of the home matches immediately before the Atletico win depicted a fanbase in torment, despite having a truly historic season within reach.
A first Premier League title for 22 years and a first Champions League crown are within touching distance. Win at West Ham on Sunday, and the domestic title is surely there. So, why aren't Arsenal fans having fun?
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"We don't feel like we're about to win a title. Winning a title doesn't feel as bloody miserable as we've been most of this year, which is it's very weird," says Arsenal fan Michael Keshani, whose extended takes on the season run-in can be found on his aptly named Substack Ball Is Strife.
"It's very weird that we might finally win something, and I think this is our worst team in four years. Every time we've had a chance to it to be fun, for it to be a bit of a procession, we've gone and made it tense again. People overstate how bad the football we play is, but it has reached some pretty bad points, particularly since Christmas."
Do Arsenal play bad football?
Playing style is definitely a stick many have used to beat Arsenal and is one of the most frequently cited reasons for them failing to find favour with neutrals, despite going up against a club in Manchester City who have won six of the previous eight English titles and still have that weight Premier League charge sheet hanging over their heads. Ian Wright spoke about it with acidic fury on Stick To Football this week, showing even his capacity for enjoyment has limits.
Within that latest piece of very shareable social content, Wright suggested City's financial might was a factor in Arsenal having to play the way they do, somewhat overlooking the fact Arteta's squad has been assembled entirely to his own specifications at no little expense. The lack of a verdict in the 115 case is a stain on the game, but it doesn't directly inform Arsenal's corner routines. As recently as last month, Wright reacted to the turgid Champions League quarterfinal with Sporting CP by saying: "Honestly, I don’t like the way we play. I’m just taking the way we play because I want us to get over the line."
At the same time, the Premier League has become more physical, more transition-heavy and more pragmatic overall this season. It's not fair for Arsenal to carry the can for this as "Set Piece FC" all on their own.
"It hasn't been fun at all, to be honest," says Dan, an Arsenal season ticket holder. "Mainly because we haven't won it for so long. But we haven't played that well in the last couple of months. We've been grinding out 1-0s and every time you drop points it destabilises your chances of winning the league."
"External noise" is referenced by all of the fans The Sporting News speaks to at one point or another. This all seemed to come to a head when Arsenal lost 2-1 at home to Bournemouth on April 11, a result that left the door ajar in the title race on the back of the 2-0 Carabao Cup final loss to City and an FA Cup exit against Championship Southampton.
Is Arteta making Arsenal tension worse?
In the build-up to the Bournemouth match, Arteta couldn't stop talking about fire, even reportedly bringing the metaphor to life and lighting one at the training ground. He also told fans to bring their lunch and dinner to the stadium and create an atmosphere to remember.
"I actually feel Arteta has been trying to protect the players, and potentially this has backfired," says Lauren Kay, an Arsenal fan young enough that Arsene Wenger's Invincibles from 2003/04 cannot be considered a core memory. "But I think a lot of what he does is provide talking points outside of their performance, which I think for a team with no experienced winners is probably needed."
If any Arsenal fan did bring a good sandwich with them that day, it would have been a clear highlight of their day. The team played in a terribly inhibited fashion. Arteta sought to calm an anxious, grumbling crowd. He wanted noise, but not that noise. Alex Scott's second-half goal gave Bournemouth a deserved 2-1 win.
"Before we played City in the cup final, weirdly, all I could think about was Bournemouth at home," says Tom Marshall-Bailey, an Arsenal fan currently exiled in the north west of England. "So much of our fanbase was almost more consumed by the idea of moving 12 points clear. We had two weeks to stew on losing the final… but imagine if we beat Bournemouth. And then it went wrong."
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One source of tension and a big part of the external noise is the experience of matchgoing Arsenal fans and the vast majority in a huge global fanbase who have to watch from afar. The divide between online and on-the-ground fans is a sprawling and heavily blurred line. Pretty much everyone at the match is online to a greater or lesser extent. The Manchester City fan who took an Arsenal bottle to their 3-0 win over Chelsea, the day after the Gunners fluffed their lines against Bournemouth, engaged in some of the most tragically online behaviour ever seen from a grown man inside a football ground.
Supporters who take it all in from behind various screens are not all rabid, conspiratorial loons. Most of them aren't. But the algorithm likes the loons, you see all the loons, and then a participant on Gary Neville's The Overlap Fan Debate says "Arsenal fans are unbearable", as if it's a statement of fact. Then that's the title of a YouTube video viewed almost three-quarters of a million times.
Are Arsenal fans really 'unbearable'?
"Bournemouth the other week, a great day out," says Michael, a remark that might cause heads to fall off all over TikTok "The football was terrible, but I went to the pub afterwards, had a great evening with my mates. I drank from 12 to eight and then, because I'm 30, I had to go home and have a pizza. But that was a really lovely day out, and the football just kind of got in the way a little bit.
"The onlineness means that not everyone can make that separation, and the nature of online means you can't leave it behind. If I pick up my phone right now, I'm going to have five texts I haven't answered about the Atletico game because I just haven't got around to it today. If I'm gonna just scroll away because I'm a bit bored or tired, it's going to be on Twitter and it's going to be talking about the game. Now, if the game is good, I'm going to be basking in it a little bit. But if we lost, I'd still be doing the same thing, and you don't get away from it.
"So everyone is so in it all the time, and that's exhausting as well. That's where it sort of comes down to being disliked, the exhaustion of not winning anything, or we haven't won anything yet. The memes, the jokes, the pressure, and how it all builds, and it's just… yeah."
Michael trails off. The noise never does. Especially around Arsenal, the club of Arsenal Fan TV, in many ways the ground zero for the relentless and often interminable fanalysis landscape we find ourselves in.
Some other clubs have a similarly visible and authentic fan voice online. The Anfield Wrap is the first port of call when it comes to Liverpool content for many on Merseyside and beyond. The noise over there is relentless too, as were the title races – one successful but others not – against far better versions of Guardiola's City than this vintage.
One image of that era of Liverpool is burned into the memory, viewed from the Wembley press box in April 2022. Klopp's Reds were still in contention for a quadruple and would ultimately miss out on the big two in utterly sapping fashion. But after a 3-2 FA Cup semifinal victory over City – Liverpool were irresistible as they raced into a 3-0 halftime lead – the red half of Wembley bounced, danced, let off flares and sang along to 'One Kiss' by Dua Lipa. The idea of Arsenal supporters having looked so euphoric at any point over the past couple of months feels so absurd as to be hilarious.
Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool parade 2019 Champions League
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"I don't think we enjoyed 21/22 as much as people might think. It was just exhausting, there were so many games," says Neil Atkinson from The Anfield Wrap. "There was just the feeling of inevitability that we wouldn't quite pull it off because we were coming from so far back. But people still enjoyed literally going to the matches and watching the team, and that's where I think the quality of the football is a big part of it for Arsenal under this manager.
"What I don't like – and I don't like it whenever we do it – is all that 'it's the hope that kills' stuff. Arsenal, I think, more than any other fanbase, have really internalised that stuff at a moment where they have their most successful side in terms of league and European performance in 20 years. They're really internalised that b******. And that's in part because none of it makes sense if they don't eventually win. Because it's horrible to watch, just unpleasant. It's football that only makes sense if you win."
Will Arsenal win anything this season?
Since losing to City in the Premier League on April 19, Arsenal have won and won again. Twice in the Premier League without conceding a goal. The 1-0 victory against Newcastle was familiarly suffocating, but going 3-0 up against Fulham before halftime, with homegrown star Myles Lewis-Skelly back in the team and injecting vigour into a flagging midfield, felt like a release.
Arsenal carried that energy into the battle with Atleti as Arteta stuck with the same team. If they beat West Ham, glory will be within tantalising touching distance.
"I think the whole season comes down to this Sunday. Like, I honestly believe — and famous last words, which I'm sure won't come back to haunt me — that we might win both if we win this Sunday."
One of our contributors said that. We're leaving them anonymous for their own sanity. But Arsenal, champions of England and champions of Europe? All at once, after all this? The hope never kills. Don't believe that for a second. It's the hope that makes all of this absolute nonsense so fundamentally worthwhile.
