When the final whistle went at Vicarage Road on Saturday, there was a startling development in the away end. As they got up to leave the stadium, none of the departing Arsenal fans booed. With heckles and ‘Wenger Out’ chants a staple of the Arsenal matchday experience at this point – and in abundance during their first two matches against Liverpool and Leicester – it was a shock to hear a few mutters of contentedness from the travelling North Londoners, and even a few isolated claps. For the first time this season, nobody wanted to harangue Arsene Wenger. Good God, what could this possibly mean?
If we were to take an educated guess, it might have something to do with Arsenal’s much improved performance. Watford weren’t exactly the most competitive opposition, but Wenger’s side were strong, organised and creative, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil sealing their 3-1 win with a couple of well-worked goals. As it turns out, Arsenal fans want to see their side play in a competent fashion, and get a decent result in the process. Who knew? Certainly not the players, judging by their first two games.
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While the much-needed three points have temporarily soothed the fans’ anger, Arsenal need to maintain their consistency. They now face Southampton at home and Hull away in their next two league matches, and absolutely must take all six points. Those games are followed by a home clash with Chelsea, which will almost certainly end in a 1-0 defeat with a Diego Costa winner, mere moments after he should have been shown his sixth or seventh yellow card. That’s an inevitability, and there’s nothing Arsenal can do about it. The fans can forgive that sort of thing, but they cannot forgive poor results against conspicuously inferior sides.
With the signings of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez to be announced imminently, Arsene Wenger is in danger of earning some renewed goodwill amongst the support. Though he’s done his transfer business horribly late, as usual, his willingness to heed the calls from the stands and actually spend some *fuck-ing* money are welcome. News of those signings has definitely been another factor in the recent lack of booing, and the growing sense that Arsenal can now stop the self-sabotage and really kick on. Who knows, perhaps they’ll turn things around for Arsene. Perhaps, one day, people will stop booing him altogether, and remember that – despite his damnable tight-fisted stubbornness – that Wenger fella was sort of alright.
