Arsenal and why the history of Emirates expectations led to full-time boos

Mikel Arteta knows Arsenal’s success does not just rest on the 11 players on the pitch at any given time, but on everyone attached to Arsenal.

Having taken charge of the club just before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was not until fans permanently returned to stadiums in the 2021-22 season when he felt his players truly connected with Arsenal’s supporters.

There was an excitement around seeing the team play live again that radiated onto the pitch and helped kickstart the journey to Arsenal becoming the title-challengers they are today.

At critical moments in this journey, the progress made has always been a two-way street between those on and around the pitch, and those in the stands.

In that 2021-22 season, against Wolves, a loose Gabriel backpass was finished by Hwang Hee-chan inside 10 minutes. Arsenal’s players left it late, but that was one of the first nights when it felt their supporters dragged the players to a victory.

The following year, a hiccup came early on when William Saliba scored an own goal against Leicester City. It was only Saliba’s second appearance for Arsenal, and the stadium responded with an instinctive ovation to encourage the young Frenchman, which Arteta said he had “never seen in football”. Gabriel Martinelli then scored within two minutes to restore Arsenal’s two-goal lead, and did so again after a James Maddison goal to see out a 4-2 victory.

Those moments were pivotal to Arsenal’s growth, but they feel like a lifetime ago.

The sense of excitement and enjoyment that surrounded a newly assembled team taking the league by storm has been replaced by a draining expectation that elicits different feelings in moments of uncertainty.

Frustration at three second-placed finishes seems to filter through more easily. Maybe it is a fatigue of seeing the same patterns play out, but the energy it creates changes the feeling when Arsenal need to pick themselves up off the canvas.

With the Manchester United match in a frantic state on Sunday, there was a moment when Eberechi Eze received the ball and looked up. He saw a sea of bodies, so took a second to assess the situation — a decision that was met with groans from the home support.

It was not the first time those in the stands and those on the pitch have been misaligned this season, with the build-up to Wolves’ equaliser in December another, but it comes as a result of that tension bred by expectation.

Asked about some booing at the full-time whistle against United, Arteta said: “That’s part of the demands and expectations that we want to win, and that’s it. Individually, everybody can react in the manner that they need to.

“We have to do more, so maybe that’s not enough. We have to do more, there’s nothing else. We have to do our very best. When you do that, you can rest in peace.”

This is where it is a two-way street.

Arteta speaks about the energy his players transmit to each other. What happens on the pitch will dictate what happens in the stands, and the energy in the stands can be just as influential to those on the pitch.

While moments like Martin Zubimendi’s poor back-pass, which led to Bryan Mbeumo’s equaliser on Sunday, have changed the mood of a match, there has also been a desire from Arsenal supporters for their team to take more risks.

A Martin Zubimendi error led to a United goal on Sunday (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

Arsenal legend Patrick Vieira said as such in his post-match analysis for Sky Sports after the 3-2 loss to United. That risk was a large portion of what made Arteta’s teams of 2021-22 and 2022-23 exciting.

The lack of risk-taking makes frustrations more understandable, but this may not solely be the case with Arteta’s Arsenal, but Premier League football as a whole. Teams’ reaction to Arsenal in that 2022-23 season has been to shut off any space from the first minute of the game, which creates more predictable matches.

Before the weekend, Arteta told Sky Sports: “I was talking to Roberto De Zerbi about that the other day, and I said: ‘It’s a different game. The game plans you used to have two, three years ago, throw them in the bin. It’s not what you’re going to face now’.

“There is a pattern, but the context of every game becomes different, because a lot of teams don’t want to do certain things until they are losing. And then the game becomes different. The level of preparation has gone to a different level and everyone probably knows their opponents better than they know themselves.”

Even with that difficulty, Arsenal have largely managed to find solutions, and are four points clear at the top of the Premier League. Their home form has been excellent on the whole, and better than on their travels.

Tension has been palpable, even in matches they have won. The games against Wolves and Brentford are just two examples, as one-goal leads allowed those matches to feel as though they were hanging in the balance.

Arteta was asked how to manage expectations after the United defeat, and said: “(By) doing what we have to do, and doing what we’ve been doing for seven months. And the position that we are in still today, even though we have lost, it’s the first time sitting here this season at home, and we lost. It’s part of the journey to winning. If not, nobody will lose football matches.”

The conundrum may not be about managing expectations, though.

Instead, finding clarity in what is desired aside from just three points may be the way to go. Is there a way to get supporters, players and staff all on the same page, enjoying what they are watching rather than fixating on what it will all mean come May?

That will ultimately come down to what the players do on the pitch, but maybe everyone involved could benefit from taking a breath and using the second half of the season as an opportunity to drive Arsenal forward rather than becoming paralysed by the fear of what could go wrong.