Football Support and Scapegoating for the Disadvantaged

What really makes me laugh when everyone decides to slate one of our players is how credible some people try and look.

Now a lot of people say "wiltord is shit". My first response to that is could you please go to Highbury, put on some boots and play for us in his position. I mean if you think he is that bad and you have the audacity and conviction to say a professional footballer who has won trophies and played consistency in games on an international and domestic level, you must be a very good player and also an extremely arrogant but unknown player. I never knew so many professional footballers were on this site.

Wiltord had a bad game and so many players have a bad game as well. To say he is crap is ludicrous, pathetic and downright idiotic. Wiltord has scored plenty of goals this season. If you realised where things go wrong for Wiltord we wouldn't be going through this same rigmarole over and over again. Although I don't think it is Wiltord, Cygan, Gilberto or any of our other scapegoats who are the problem. It's simply fans looking for someone who is in the public eye to look up to and be associated with. For example, "i support arsenal and we have great players but I am not associated with crap ones because supporting arsenal for me is a business card I carry to show off to people and will only be associated with the more glamorous factors of the club".

Nothing wrong with that other than the fact it is so far from football and the reality of football. You can not go around slating your own players. If Arsenal were a relegation bound club with relegation worries as well what would your position on the players be then? Due to this the views on Wiltord are ultimately naive and unrelated to football. You can not beat your players to the ground like that. We have amazing players at Arsenal and the game is 11 on 11 and they all make a difference on that field. They are not professional footballers on the basis of circumstance but professional footballers on the basis of working hard.

Now your all wanting Aliadiere to break through instead of him. I for one would love Aliadiere to have a chance at the top but not on the basis of Wiltord. I think everyone will begin to attack Aliadiere eventually too. Why Jeffers was never slated for his position in the team I don't know but that guys was totally the worst player I have seen in an Arsenal shirt in a very very long time. I still saw him as an Arsenal player though and waited for his best to come through. Hoping for his worst or any other players worst is a stupid sentiment carried around for some rather illogical reason and is such a contradictory of supporting a football team it's ridiculous.

I always expect the best from the players. Players can always surprise us and make things look different. Yesterday we couldn't break through and the one area of the field they had covered well against us again was Parlours end where Wiltord would get most of his delivery. They had a great left back on the field who basically trapped everything. When Wiltord did move in to the center or the left with Bob and Henry we saw some pretty good football. We were stronger than Locomotiv but we couldn't break through.

Wiltords best games come from consistency or over-pressure. He has shown in the past he can play remarkably well agaisnt the strongest of teams and score goals. He can take on players, he can stop the ball well, he plays remarkably well when we counter attack and doesn't slow us down like other players (this is the vital reason he plays, because he works well with our best counter attacking players, Fred, Bergs, Henry, Gilberto and Bob), he is always making runs and finding spaces to dominate and basically he is very technical and has a pretty good footballing mind. That is why he works well in our team and has been our strongest and most successful line ups in the past few years.

He has proved this playing for us at the level we play at and if you can't see the situation in which he exists and how well he performs at this level I can't see why you spend your time trying to justify saying he is bad because on the basis of football at a professional level he is far from bad and most players aren't. What works against them is the other team because, hell it is a competitive sport and also the ability to gel against another team. The difference is Wiltord works with and in consequence with our better players and compliments their play.

If you look at it and his situation, what exactly do you want Wiltord to do? Become some kind of super human player of some kind who basically plays like you want him to play? What exactly do you want from a team because Football is a strange game and players like Wiltord are vital to making your chances work in your favour in these games. You don't need run of the mill players who do the rigmarole footballing thing but players who add that little extra to the game that the opposition can be manipulated with.

When one of our players gets slated so badly I can think nothing more than believe that some of you don't know what you are talking about. If we were in division one, I am just wondering how many people would still be around here to have a go at him. I remember back in the early nineties and mainly the eighties, most players would have been slated by most of the posters here. This is not the basis upon which a football team is supported because it only creates a foundation for criticism and is built on the idea of brilliance and glamour. A team is in fact built of many different factors, associated with strategy, sportsmanship and technicalities and players play a significant role in the team and that is why they are there.

Wiltord has also done likewise to this at a very admirable level. Actual criticism of a player would revolve around the point when he is causing problems in the team. The players always strive to feed off each other and one weak link is based upon the lack of commitment to the squad on a footballing level, not because he looks bad and doesn't play as well, but if the player doesn't work with his team as well and communicate as a team player. Wiltord does all that. Some people here just want faces on a magazine.