The Unbalanced Fan

As a football fan, I confess to being an optimist, a believer that one day everything will eventually sort itself out. I’m not an eternal optimist mind you, I do recognise faults and flaws, but I believe my balance between pessimism and optimism is just about right.

Football is a game of opinions. You can use stats all you want, but opinions are what define football.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed the varying emotions amongst football fans- ecstasy, misery, annoyance, fury, delight, the lot. Recently though, it seems all of these feelings are becoming overridden by bitterness.

On the surface, everyone seems like a pessimist; every player is a fraud, every player deserves to be sold, every match should be won 5-0. Each large fan base seems to have a negative cloud floating over their heads, and it makes you wonder if they’re being ungrateful or right on the money.

Tottenham Hotspur

I’ll start with my beloved Spurs.

In a season of expected transition, people still find an excuse to bemoan what could be a downward spiral. Back in August, we asked for a respectable league finish (no mention of the top four whatsoever), an improved brand of football, and a good performance in the cups. Mauricio Pochettino claimed in his first interview he wanted to create a team the fans could be proud of- isn’t that what we’ve got?

One week we’re celebrating the team we have, claiming we should fear no side, and the next it’s making us suicidal- I’ve never seen such a bipolar fan base. Satisfaction doesn’t last long at White Hart Lane, despite the expectance of a transitional season.

So what do we do? We scapegoat someone. Earlier in the season, Danny Rose was targeted with abuse and unnecessary cruelty whenever he put a foot wrong, despite proving to be a better left back this year than Ben Davies. Thankfully, half of the fan base has changed their tune and realised playing Rose is far more beneficial, but a lot of his work still goes unrecognised.

After Rose, we come to the biggest scapegoat I’ve ever seen in my time of supporting Spurs- Erik Lamela. Much like our season, we didn’t expect Lamela to break too many waves, but to have a season of transition- reminder, this is technically his first season in England, and it’s following a five month back and thigh injury. But let’s just forget that. Let’s lament every action that doesn’t warrant a price tag that was out of his hands. Let’s rip him to shreds despite the obvious poorer performances elsewhere on the pitch.

This slating of Lamela began back in September, and many people didn’t buy into the idea. However, the idea of criticising the Argentine’s every action has become a popular one, and unfortunately a bandwagon one. People are selling out their own beliefs in order to fit in, seem popular. Instead of doing the right thing and backing our player, they try and fake an opinion on him.

It doesn’t end there either. Against West Ham, Lamela was one of our best players, yet he still drew in more criticism than players such as Mousa Dembele and Ryan Mason (who, for the record, played shamefully). I even saw an instance where someone created a fictional on-field event and slated Lamela for it. Completely fictional. Didn’t exist. Never happened.

It has to stop; even fans of other clubs were recognising how unfair this treatment was. He will improve; Look at the others who have underperformed: Capoue, dropped; Kaboul, dropped; Adebayor, dropped. If Pochettino didn't believe in him, he would have dropped him long ago.

Chelsea

Somehow, somehow, Jose Mourinho has managed to convince an entire fan base that there is a campaign against Chelsea Football Club. It’s extraordinary.

No one will deny that Chelsea should have had more luck in terms of refereeing decisions, but what team doesn’t? We all have decisions go against us, we all have games that seem like nothing will go our way, but that’s football. Mark Noble should have been sent off against Tottenham, Southampton should have had two clear penalties in the opening five minutes vs Liverpool, but I don’t think Mauricio Pochettino or Ronald Koeman will be on Sky Sports tomorrow ranting for twenty minutes about how unfair that was.

Whilst the standard of refereeing in the Premier League is quite poor (and I’ll give credit to Mourinho for bringing this to the media’s attention), there is no campaign against Chelsea. They are simply going through a period that seems like nothing goes their way, but that’s not the case. Many times in the past (believe me, many), Chelsea have been fortunate with crucial decisions. However, you don’t see these being made public by Chelsea fan accounts, do you?

The West London club need to calm down; if they want to blame a possible derailing of a season on refereeing, then Mourinho truly does have every Chelsea fan in the palm of his hand.

Manchester United

Much like Tottenham, Manchester United were expecting a transitional season, but one that would see them qualify for the UEFA Champions League. At the moment, that scenario looks very likely, but it still isn’t pleasing United fans.

Gary Neville wrote this week about how if the owners at Manchester United wanted an attacking brand of football, they would have hired a manager with that philosophy. They didn’t, and United fans need to accept that. Many were expecting the man that had supposedly taught Pep Guardiola at Barcelona- this wasn't quite the reality. The Red Devils in danger of drifting away from the rest of the pack like last year, and the faithful at Old Trafford need to instil more trust into Louis van Gaal. 

The club should finish in the top four and are the favourites to win the FA Cup, and whilst whatever United achieve can't really be considered much of an achievement in this era, it's a huge step forward.

Arsenal

With Arsenal, their fans aren’t so much ungrateful, but rather deluded. This isn't fan bias, it's a clear truth. Whilst I know some sense-seeing Gooners, a lot of their fan base is an embarrassment. Adrian Durham wrote this week how Arsenal fans overrate their own players to compensate for lack of silverware and competing in the big competitions, and I fully agreed with him (despite what I may think of the Talksport presenter).

At Crystal Palace, Olivier Giroud scored his 50^th goal for Arsenal, and giving how much criticism he receives at the Emirates, it’s a great achievement for the Frenchman. But of course, there would be some fans that would ruin such a good record.

It was later revealed that Giroud reached 50 goals for Arsenal quicker than Didier Drogba did at Chelsea, and manager Arsene Wenger compared Giroud’s 50 goals at Arsenal to Robin van Persie’s 48 at Manchester United.

With Drogba’s record, yes, I’ll grant Arsenal fans an excuse to be excited. I will not, however, let them believe Chelsea fans compare Drogba to Henry. Not once have I seen a Chelsea fan compare the two, but Arsenal fans love to claim they have.

With van Persie, I think he’ll take his Premier League title at Old Trafford over his loss in the race to 50 goals, don’t you?

Arsenal’s fan base stinks of an inferiority complex, and the Gooners who don’t talk such nonsense need to make themselves heard.

Do fans need to find the right balance between positivity and negativity, or is that what makes football so interesting?