‘Fans feel the pressure more than us’

On the Wembey pitch after the FA Cup final Jack Wilshere suggested that the team has learned to cope with the pressure better than the fans. ‘I think they feel the pressure a little bit more than us but today they were brilliant again and they’re going to enjoy it with us tomorrow as well’ the midfielder said.

In his pre-Community Shield press conference Wenger embraced a related theme ‘The tribunal is out there and will draw conclusions from Sunday. But no matter, positive or negative [result], we have to continue our way and focus on ourselves.’

At a fractious shareholders meeting back in 2009 Wenger referred to the difficulties that the negative atmosphere around the club gave in getting the maximum out of players ‘We have had negative vibes and manipulation around the team. It is very hard work to keep the confidence and energy demands because we had to support the team against the odds.’

The relationship between those observations is in how pressure is handled in the modern game.

Sports psychology is not new but it does perhaps play an increasing role in preparing players for the game. To shut out external ‘noise’ and focus on producing what they are physically capable of. There’s a level of mental toughness needed which seems to be as much part of the training and preparation of the modern football athlete, schooled from an early age, as the physical side.

Its importance is evident enough and in direct proportion to the amount of stress and pressure that’s put on many football supporters. As coaching staff work to reduce the stress and bring a balanced but positive perspective to the players externally football cultivates exactly the opposite from supporters.

Building up the tension is all part of the performance for broadcasters and the general media, aided by social media. The transfer window is now a ticking clock with daily updates and figures for total spending notching up with each move culminating in the final hour show when winners and losers are declared. Creating conflicts between protagonists in football now follows a pattern those familiar with the faux ritual of pre-match confrontations in heavyweight title boxing contests of the past might recognise. If those conflicts mean managers don’t exchange handshakes before, after or during a game it is made to matter.

In the past, once Saturday was over, we’d walk away from it until Saturday came again. It’s much harder to avoid it all now as social media and modern communications drops something into our inbox 24/7.

Balanced and rational supporters are not what the industry, in its widest sense, needs. The need is for committed tribal supporters responding in every comments thread and reacting to radio phone ins at any and every provocative comment. How many facebook likes, twitter followers a club has is the focus of most club’s commercial teams. Most of us know when we’re being played but the bait is often too tempting to resist no matter how obviously it is set.

When the chief football writer at the BBC can predict in his pre-season review that Arsenal will finish 5th and 8 months later in his post season review suggest that 3rd placed Arsenal had a disappointing season then we know rational analysis isn’t a priority in football commentary.

Wilshere is probably right. We do feel the pressure more than them. They are trained to deal with it and we are encouraged, maybe even manipulated to react to it. In many ways that’s a good thing -essential even. The atmosphere at games needs the outcome to matter. The level of tension we feel before and during a contest is the buzz we get from the sport.

How the football industry needs for players and supporters to deal with that pressure is now very different. At the same time it doesn’t do any harm to acknowledge the pantomime element that exists in much of it.