Vermaelen is not an AAA « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month
This article refers to the AAA – the name Untold gave to the supporters who always complain about the team and the management. You can read about the AAA further here.
By Walter Broeckx
Yesterday I read a sentence that our captain has said or written down this week.
Vermaelen said: “Some people seem to like being negative & it appears to make them happier, but that’s not the attitude you’ll get from the team.”
I don’t think this sentence will make Vermaelen more popular by the AAA. Because in a way it is almost a perfect description of the negative part of supporters of Arsenal.
We all have seen it in the last years. When Arsenal win a game they stay away from Untold. Or when they come they try to write down the performance of the team. But when we lose a game…they come out in full force.
As if they are finding pleasure in our defeat. We know some are waiting impatiently for the next Arsenal defeat to come over and rub it under our nose. If you read between the lines you can see that there is no sadness for the defeat. No, there is joy because they can tell us how bad things are.
Most of us on Untold are people who have a more optimistic point of view on Arsenal, and so we are somewhat different. We are sad because we lost a game. Because we don’t want Arsenal to lose a game. But we try to think that there will be more games to look forward too. We look for a certain player who did fine. We look at a player who came back from a long term injury and who did a good job. We try to find something positive to lift our spirit again.
Of course a defeat hurts but well it is part of football and just the invicibles were immune to that part of football for 49 games.
But Vermaelen now is saying that the he and the team don’t have the same attitude as the AAA. And we should be grateful for this. Because if it would be that the team would fall for the AAA look of things…then we would be really doomed.
Throughout the whole of last week the AAA said we would lose against WBA. Because the players being useless, the manager don’t have a clue, the board steeling our money, Gazidis doing nothing at all…. Now just imagine if the players would come to the training ground after the Swansea defeat and say: all is lost. We’re doomed for ever. Well then we surely would have lost against WBA.
But no. The team came out with a positive attitude and just did what was needed. They won the game. The fight was there, the spirit was there, the will to do well was there. All things that according to the AAA are missing all the time.
I know the Swansea game was a bad one. But that is just the way it goes in football. Sometimes a team can come up with a bad performance. And if the other team has a good day it can cost you the game. But the way we played against WBA showed that the team took the defeat on the chin and stood up and told themselves to do better. And they did.
A bit like we try to do at Untold. Feeling down after a defeat. But looking at something positive and work from that to do better next time.
While the AAA just revels in the defeat to pat themselves on the back saying: told you so. Well that attitude doesn’t help the team at all.
What does help is support. What helps is believing that things can be turned around. What does help is knowing that because of one or even a few bad performances the team is not done and can stand up and do better.
Of course I do hope that the team, the players and the managers look back at a defeat and point at the things that went wrong. But not with an AAA pair of glasses on. Because then we could call it a day and stop playing at all this season.
No it should be done with the Untold pair of glasses on. Okay, it went terribly wrong let us do better next time. Being overly negative doesn’t help you to move forward. It only brings you down more.
But as Vermaelen said: some people are happy about feeling negative. I’m not one of those people.
I always try to ask: what is best for Arsenal? If we all give up and just lay down is that the best thing to do? I think not. It will bring us even more down. I really do believe that with a positive attitude you can get further. Not just in football but in live in general.
The players know all too well what goes on amongst the supporters I think. Is it a coincidence they ask to support the team more? I think they know all too well about the differences that exist between the fans. But they know all too well that going to the war in a divided way is only going to cause worst performances and results.
If the players would listen to the negativity that is surrounding Arsenal in some quarters we would be relegated at the end of the season. If the players would be happy when feeling negative like the AAA does we would be in big trouble.
So lucky for our club the players are having a more Untold look at things. Let us just try to do better each time. And if we failed on a day, we just try harder next time. The players don’t sink in to a sea of negativity delivered by the AAA. The players start each game just trying to do better. And it is up to us to support them in their fight to deliver a better result.
Maybe even the AAA has it reason and its part in Arsenal, but we can be very grateful for the fact that the team is not part of the AAA mindset. Because if they would be, then things really would look bad.
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