Is the pressure starting to tell on the Arsenal players?

Whilst for many divisions in England, football is still a part time job, in the Premier League, everything the players do revolves around football. The players have to build their bodies around the game, eat in line with managerial requests and basically live and breath the life of the sport.

Luckily for them, they get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds every month and so I can’t imagine fifteen/twenty years of devotion to football is too bad for them, especially as it’ll be something they love. However I can understand that perhaps under the constant urges to be competitive and the media frenzies that surrounds them almost 24/7, playing professional football must put a hell of a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

At Arsenal, the pressure is always there to compete at the top, often because we expect more from the players who seem to consistently underperform of their capabilities every single season. Perhaps there are doubts that we allow ourselves to win the league when perhaps it’s an unrealistic hope, however surely we can at least expect them to put up a fight and be amongst the best.

Currently there is overwhelming amounts of pressure on everybody at Arsenal. From Arsene Wenger and the board of directors, to the players and the medical staff. The fans want Wenger out because he is unable to take this club forward anymore. The board of directors and the owner only seem to be interested in one thing – profit; and as for the medical team, for some reason they just cannot get it right. The players also deserve their share of the criticism, and of course the jury is out on wanting some of the players to leave.

However has the pressure gotten too much for the players and is that what has caused such an upset at the club. The Gunners Legend Nigel Winterburn has had his say on the matter and he feels that the persistent hounding of players has taken the game to a different level. Winterburn said: “We had some fabulous times. I always say I played in a special period, we had that little bit of freedom to go out and do stuff that we wanted to do but weren’t hammered for it. ”

Winterburn is talking about how the players in his period of play had more freedom in their life, and there wasn’t so much pressure bound onto the players. They played with passion, fight and of course when times were tough they got stick from the fans. However in today’s game, the fans and media are quick to turn their backs on players when the going gets tough, and as we’ve seen with Ozil already this season, it’s been suggested that he’s been made to feel as the scapegoat of the club.

Of course football is a very different game today and we expect so much more because it is a full time profession that happens to be very lucrative in terms of finances. We expect more from the players and every club can be scrutinised by their own fans and the media, making Arsenal players no different from the rest. Pressure cannot be used and excused and things certainly need to change sooner rather than later!

By AH

9 Comments

  1. If I have Walcott’s salary for playing for Arsenal, I will practice hard and I will do my best to achieve what other top level players have done. There will be no excuse for me if I get more than fifty thousands per week for playing football.

    1. You have to perform FIRST, before getting the big pay check

      Read a lot of fans comments ‘if I got paid X’… ‘I’d do …’

      It just doesn’t work like that.

      Being paid a big salary doesn’t make anyone a player great. A great player DOES make a big salary (when spotted)

      1. “Being paid a big salary doesn’t make anyone a player great. A great player DOES make a big salary (when spotted)”

        That was what I wanted to point out. Player like Walcott has spent more than ten years in Arsenal with a very big salary, yet still unable to achieve what other top level players have done. Players like him should show top level performance, before rewarded with huge money. There should be no excuse for players like him when they are not performing.

        1. No holding brief for Theo or any player, but the whole squad never really had consistency in years. It is a general effect, players are not injured and you expect them to grab their chance and prove a point, then they are not match fit and very, very not mentally fit. Can you believe that.

  2. Well there isn’t a pressure at Arsenal to be successful, or even competitive. On the footballing side, it’s a fairly relaxed affair for the players, and manager alike. Not the case at ALL other big clubs, because they expect progress straight away, especially considering the amount of money they spend.

    Off the pitch, I guess that’s where more of the intense scrutiny lies. More live games, and punditry, more football discussion programs, fans on Youtube, Twitter, 24/7 sports news, etc…Everyone is constantly in the spot light, with any mishap, or poor result, usually being blown out of proportion. But again, this hasn’t really been the case with Wenger, and Arsenal though. For years, a lot of fans have had enough of him, and could clearly see the problems, but the media have gone VERY easy on Wenger. It’s only recently that they have started questioning him, but even now, there is still a lot of so called “expert commentators” within the footballing world, that think Wenger’s still the man for the job, and that Arsenal will slip into the abyss as soon as he leaves.

    I can only hope the pressure intensifies on Wenger from now, until the end of the season.

  3. The players wages today are 20 times higher than what they were in Winterburns day’s and in saying that The English FA are considering a wage cap on players wages, I wonder if anyone from the Arsenal board had anything to do with that idea? Anyways, that news would surely be music to our clubs ears.
    The good old day’s saw donkey Adams and crew Downing pints before and after games ????? as long as it didn’t effect their game, nothing was said. Today’s lot are all about the bling bling selfie king and most of their serious training is done on their playstation’s ?

  4. The same parameters that are being used by the media or the fans to gauge players should be applied more importantly to the manager and even the club as a whole.Is Arsenal for instance just in the competitions for the hell of it or are they there to compete for the attainment of the trophies and the accompanying goodies?.
    Being a globalized sport as it is, you can’t get away from the closer scrutiny by the world at large as compared to the halcyon days of Tony Adams ,Nigel Winterburn and Co. Everybody involved especially the manager and the players need to step up their game,no two ways about it. Oh,and that BIG matter of Wenger, pressure needs to be sustained or better yet upped. Personally I am tired of repeating myself up in here every time!

  5. Pressure? Arsenal players? Don’t kid yourself. Players in the Arsenal squad can do not wrong in the eyes of wenger. So what pressure are they put under.
    I just heard wengers press conference. How dismissive was he when asked about the protests. Pure ignorance! My respect for him is dwindling daily.

  6. Fans say Arsenal finishing outside the top four might be good because it will remove Wenger. I’m not so sure. Fans will feel what it’s like to finally finish behind Tott, then watching them and others play the big CL games. We have never tasted that for the longest of times. It might get allot of fans fearing it become the norm, then seeing Wengers record as a way of putting things back.

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