Arsène Wenger told reporters in his pre-match press conference that he wants supporters to keep supporting until the final whistle blows.
Wenger was speaking ahead of the Gunners trip to Goodison Park. After the disappointing result against Watford last weekend, Arsène was asked about the fan reaction.
The boss responded (via Daily Star): “What is for sure today is fans have a preconceived idea of how the season will be very quickly – that it will not be good.
“In football, even the best team in the world will have good or bad games. That’s why you need to convince your fans that having a positive season doesn’t depend on one or two games.
“You can only have a positive season if we are all behind the team until the end of the season. Then you can accept the verdict. I can completely understand that people are unhappy when you don’t win. But as long as the game goes on, you want people behind the team.”
On the one hand, I think it’s an easy get-out to say that every team will have good and bad results, especially when we’ve only seen one more win than loss for Arsenal so far in the league, eight games in. If you win 10 and lose one then it would be a perfectly valid defence, but that’s not the situation the Gunners are in.
However, I do agree with Wenger’s point about fan support. Too often nowadays the Arsenal fans switch from backing the players to having a go at them before the game is over. In fact, from all the games I’ve been to myself this season, I can tell you for certain that some fans are turning up ready to complain from the first minute.
Arguably, it’s up to Arsenal to prove those critics wrong.
Fans are only arriving ready for disappointment because we’ve experienced it so regularly in recent years.
But, at the same time, I can’t help but feel that unconditional support might drive the team on to a couple more good results. The problem is, Arsenal have not given the fans many reasons to offer that, especially when they watch the players seemingly fail to deliver a similar level of commitment on the pitch.