WHILE they’ve fallen away now in terms of challenging for the top honours, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal are still the runaway champions when it comes to feeling sorry for themselves.
If it’s not William Gallas, sitting blubbing on the pitch, or Wenger himself complaining about referees and the opposition kicking the ball too hard, they are making a great big deal over Emmanuel Eboue and the rough treatment he got at the hands of the Emirates crowd. Granted, the Ivorian did cut a sorry figure when hauled off with boos ringing in his ears, but surely he got over it by the time he jumped in his Bentley and headed home?
There have been all sorts of articles this week talking about the incident, commenting on the mean-spiritedness of modern football crowds, and acting almost as if this ‘disgusting incident’ was somehow a new phenomenon. The fact is though players have always received stick from their own supporters. That doesn’t make it right – far from it, it’s pointless and counterproductive – but supporters have never been shy about making their feelings known. And quite frankly, if Eboue was an Everton player he would have had a nervous breakdown by now, as Goodison Park is one of the more infamous grounds in the country in terms of getting on players’ backs.
The likes of Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville are often on the receiving end of more than their fair share of groans now, while the likes of David Unsworth, Gareth Farrelly and Mark Pembridge, to name just a few at random, had to endure quite merciless barracking at times. It hasn’t just been the more modestly talented individuals who have borne the brunt of the Paddock’s ire down the years though – legends like Peter Reid and Kevin Ratcliffe weren’t spared either towards the end of their Everton careers.
A player has a bad game, the crowd get agitated, the player loses confidence and the whole thing can end up in a bit of a downward spiral. And for all the pleas by team-mates, pundits and managers for the supporters to lighten up, the only person who can break the cycle is the player himself. Perform well, which is kind of what they get paid thousands of pounds a week to do, and the problem will go away. That’s what the likes of Pembridge and Unsworth did – could you imagine the man they called ‘Rhino’ skulking off the pitch, almost in tears?
It’s almost like everyone in football is looking for sympathy now though. If it’s not the players then it’s managers.
Paul Ince’s tirade about there being a conspiracy against him was quite startling. What managers usually do is talk about other people, saying that they should be given more time in jobs, when everyone knows that they are really referring to themselves.
It’s not nice when the crowd start chanting that they want a manager out, or singling a player out for criticism, but being a supporter isn’t always a bag of laughs either, and certainly never a cheap one.
So the message to Eboue, Wenger, Ince, Roy Keane and whoever else feels like a delicate little flower this week is this: Life’s tough, wear a helmet.
A solid gold one if you like, you can afford it.
