speedy wrote:
Shady wrote:
I believe their own performance affects them more than what our fans do. If Xhaka keeps underhitting passes I think that would affect him more than the fans' response. These guys aren't stupid, they know fans are emotional and they are able to analyse their own performance. Your bit about Rio backs this up. The striker is affected by his own miss, not the fans' response to it.
Now I'm not saying that fans have no effect on players whatsoever, but I am saying that our fans have not gone as far as to cause our shit performances this season, which was your initial point that I took issue with. Booing every touch for weeks on end would have an effect, sure. But our fans do not do that, not with Xhaka, Mustafi or anyone.
I think being near the bottom of the table affected our players more than our fans telling them to "fuck off".
There own performance effects them but kicking them when their down has a cementing effect. We saw previously some players couldn't play home games. So we know for certain it effects their preformance. How much is debatable. But at this level like i mentioned a drop of 1 or 2/10 is enough to have an effect.
Your original point was that "it really helps not having our fans there" as in present tense, yet you keep using historical examples?
I am talking about our squad right now and saying that it is not the fans' fault that this squad has played badly or lost confidence.
I would say Emery fucking up the team against Palace, us getting hammered by Wolves and Leicester (away from home), getting hammered by Chelsea in Baku (with almost no fans) is what derailed the morale of the squad, not fans booing. Confidence has been lifted by Arteta coming in.
We were unbeaten in the league in 2020 before the lockdown and despite a few unlucky results, lots of us noticed the upturn in performances under Arteta, despite those horrible nasty fans.