I remember, distinctly, a series of tweets in the summer of 2019 that made my head spin.
They were regarding Giorginio Wijnaldum. They were authored by a Liverpool fan I followed, and although it was too long ago to remember the details, the tone has been etched into my brain since. Wijnaldum, the fan wrote, was no longer good enough. He was dead weight and must be removed from the club if the team were to evolve. I’m being polite - the opinion was much stronger and quite derogatory about old George. I remember this because it shocked me so.
For context, in May of that year, Liverpool had enjoyed one of the greatest nights in their history; nay, one of the greatest nights in football history. 3-0 down on aggregate, they invited Barcelona to Anfield and dismantled them in a blaze of Scouse passion and fury. It was almost impossible not to be swept up in the romance of it all. It was certainly impossible not to root for them in the final a month later, in which they thankfully beat Tottenham Hotspur.
Wijnaldum, of course, was pivotal to this run. He scored twice against Barcelona and started the final. He was a central figure in what was, in my opinion, one of the most extraordinary months in the history of any English football club.
A few weeks later, fans were questioning his usefulness - as if he were a tool gone blunt.
That same month, Arsenal reached and played in the final of the Europa League under a coach who’d won it three times. That miserable night in Azerbaijan has since been ferociously scrubbed from the club’s collective memory. It was, and remains, a low point. The absolute trenches.
I have remembered the Wijnaldum anecdote for so long because it represented a phenomenon in football that interests me. At first I was simply confused. I could not imagine, as I tried to forget Olivier Giroud’s glancing header and the collapse that followed, what it felt like to follow Liverpool Football Club that summer. And I certainly could not comprehend what kind of feeling would possess a fan to say something so passionately negative about a player who’d just delivered history. Surely these men should be wrapped in gold, sheltered from the usual knocks and bruises of angst for at least a summer? The paint wasn’t even dry on the murals.
Arsenal lost 2-0 to Bournemouth this weekend. It was their first Premier League defeat in six months. The club’s start to this season has been stuttering, punctuated by bizarre red cards and persistent injuries. Fluency of the kind that defined last season’s run-in - an all-timer stretch in the club’s storied history - has been hard to find.
And so a strange kind of lethargy has settled. Some fans have voiced concerns about the home atmosphere. Many are anticipating this week’s home tie against Liverpool with dread. The online echo chambers are loud with the din of grown adults whinging. And I think I finally understand that Liverpool fan who took to the internet half a decade ago.
The problem with being this good is you become emotionally complacent. You begin to feel as if you deserve to win, every week, and it becomes a betrayal of fate when you don’t. To be clear, I’m talking about the fans, not the players - I imagine complacency is not one of the FOGGIN ESTANDARDS. We become addicted to a feeling and the comedown is too much to handle.
Arsenal are still riding the comedown of 2022/23. That Reiss Nelson goal was an explosion of adrenaline so intense it’s taking years to fade. We all realised it might happen that day. A group of young players who perfectly represented Arsenal’s values were surging from fifth place to unseat an unbeatable juggernaut and emerge as champions. It was a story to set our souls alight and we were engulfed by it. Who wouldn’t be?
The story Mikel Arteta has written since that late collapse has not been as dramatic. We have enjoyed all the winning but never again will this team be underdogs. They can never again explode from nowhere, plucky youngsters, to challenge for an improbable title. Now they are expected and that changes everything.
Arsenal fans are convinced the world is against them. Without exonerating such fans of blame - they are, without a doubt, extraordinarily annoying - I do think this conception grew from a seed of truth. The Noise that follows Arsenal is undeniably very loud, probably disproportionately so. This is a club that hasn’t won the Premier League in almost twenty years but are covered like perpetual champions. The Athletic just launched a newsletter specifically for Arsenal news - no other club has the same. I have many theories on this obsession. As most things are, it’s deeply multifaceted. But layer this constant Noise over three quick-fire red cards that - technically legitimate as they may be - never seem to happen to anyone else, it’s easy to see why the hackles have gone up.
My plea to myself, and to any reading this, is not the let The Noise overtake you. Don’t succumb to emotional complacency. Don’t let those who quibble and scapegoat define how we speak about this moment - the first moderately tricky period Arsenal have faced since January. This team is extraordinary and what they’ve done is historic. If football was a just sport they’d have two league titles already and would today be competing for a third. They are among the favourites to go deep into the Champions League. None of this is normal. The world may now expect Arsenal but that doesn’t mean we must forget how rare it is for that to be true.
Some perspective, please. We are so lucky to follow a team that wins so, so much more than it loses. Following football has to be about more than winning, constantly. All this is just story - we will never again be youthful, explosive underdogs, so what comes next? We have to find that for ourselves. Many are waiting to write it for us and will gladly step in if we don’t. Sure, there are things to be concerned about. But a raincloud settling over an era we should be treasuring would be a colossal shame.
This is all so fragile and one day it will collapse. Please, let’s not forget where we’ve been: a trench so deep a 2-0 loss to Bournemouth would’ve felt like a small mercy. Let’s not throw our Wijnaldums under the bus at the first sign of trouble. Keep singing until it’s over, because the end of joy is inevitable, and we’ll yearn again when it has passed.
Postcards from N5
Is Myles Lewis-Skelly now Arteta’s preferred option at left-back? Riccardo Calafiori’s injury looked pretty bad, he says confidently from his armchair, and Arteta turned to MLS as Kiwior and Zinchenko watched on. I like how combative and aggressive MLS is when 1-v-1, but I am extremely worried Salah could give him a hiding so bad he’d take months to recover. It’s incredible we’ve stockpiled full-backs like they’re emergency rations yet have exactly none fit. I think Partey - White - Gabriel - Kiwior would be my preferred four from those available, but yeesh. That looks rough. Lucky I’m not the manager.
With every non-crucial game that passes without Ethan Nwaneri in the starting XI, it becomes harder to defend Mikel Arteta’s caution. This team is still young, in many ways - Jurrien Timber and Calafiori, this year’s great revelations, are 23 and 22, let’s not forget - but it really stings to see Ethan’s prelude drag. Hale End is Arsenal, and if Arteta wants to change the story that’s slowly smothering his team, crowning a new academy breakout would be a great way to do it.
If Billy Carpenter says Gabriel Martinelli’s dip in form was overblown, I believe him without question. But still…it’s really nice to see Medium Gabi be truly decisive again. In Martin Ødegaard’s absence, the overwhelming right-side bias seems to have departed and the side looks balanced in terms of which flank it attacks through. Add Mikel Merino and Calafiori to the mix and we could be in for something special…when they’re all available. There were a few moments in which Merino engineered so much space for both himself and Martinelli by drifting up into the half-space - we’ve missed that, ‘Nelli has missed that, and I’ve certainly missed his smile. Hehe.
Thanks for reading. See you next week to deconstruct whatever story emerges from Liverpool. I am nervous.
T
Love this Tom. Balanced and sensible. I too fear the Liverpool game and can’t help shake that feeling. Your point about Nwaneri is spot on and I think is felt by many. Personally if we lose games with Hale Enders in the team I’m so much more forgiving internally.