OLIVER HOLT: It’s absurd to say Arsenal can only celebrate if they win a trophy. Fans live for moments. Let’s not make a ration book for joy
It was a bitterly cold night in Birmingham last Tuesday when Newcastle United went to Villa Park. Eddie Howe’s team had not won a league match since the middle of December. Most people expected Aston Villa to outclass them and push them down into the bottom half of the table.
Newcastle had brought a big contingent of travelling fans, as they always do. It is a long journey down from the north east at the end of a working day. It would have cost plenty of money and effort to make the trip in deep mid-winter and support a team that has drifted into the doldrums.
They made a lot of noise, those supporters. They got right behind their side. And Newcastle surprised most neutrals by outplaying Villa. They won 3-1 and they deserved it. And at the end of the game, the players and the staff went over to their fans in the Doug Ellis Stand in a corner of the ground opposite the press box, and celebrated with them.
Anthony Gordon, their best player that evening, stood on the turf and sang along to ‘Who’s That Team We Call United/’ and the fans, some shirtless in the cold, danced and roared. They hadn’t won a trophy. They hadn’t sealed a spot in the top four or made it into a cup final. They had won a mid-season game that moved them up to seventh place.
My inner curmudgeon thinks the celebratory dressing room team pictures after every victory, which Newcastle have pioneered, are excessive. There’s an even bigger part of me, though, that thinks I need to get over it.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta came under scrutiny for his passionate celebrations after his side’s 3-1 victory over Liverpool on Sunday evening
Gunners captain Martin Odegaard took control of the club photographer’s camera to capture the wild celebrations at the Emirates
The Gunners’ post-match party continued into the dressing room long after the final whistle
Good luck to the Newcastle players for celebrating with their fans at Villa Park. I’d rather they did that than ignore them and march straight down the tunnel. I hate it when players remain aloof from supporters. I hate it when I see those images of players getting off a team bus and walking straight past their fans with their headphones on.
We want our players to be relatable, don’t we? We want to see that a win means as much to them as it does to us. We want to believe that it’s more than just a job, more than just 90 minutes at the office. And we want the fans to feel valued for their loyalty, not taken for granted.
So, actually, I looked at the Newcastle players celebrating with their fans and it sent a thrill of joy through me. Football’s supposed to be about joy, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be about a shared love of the game that produces moments and emotions like the ones the Newcastle fans experienced at Villa Park.
And I felt exactly the same about Arsenal’s celebrations following their victory over Liverpool at The Emirates on Sunday. I enjoyed seeing Martin Odegaard living the moment with the supporters.
I loved seeing him clowning around, wielding a camera and taking pictures of the Arsenal club photographer. Michael Essien did something similar after the 2009 FA Cup Final and picked up a camera belonging to a photographer from The Times. The paper published his pictures. They, too, were images of sheer joy.
It was a significant win for Arsenal on Sunday. Lose against Liverpool and they were as good as out of the title race. Everyone would have been queuing up to call them bottlers again. Everyone would have been saying they were hollow men, that they had no spirit, that they did not have the character to be winners.
Odegaard borrowed a camera from Arsenal photographer Stuart MacFarlane and took photos
Former Chelsea star Michael Essien did the same after the 2009 FA Cup final
But Arsenal’s players stood up. In front of their own fans, they saved their best performance of the season so far for their biggest game. They were brilliant from start to finish. And in the aftermath, relief and vindication and rekindled hope coursed through them and they celebrated. Why wouldn’t they?
Mikel Arteta’s touchline antics sometimes do him few favours but it takes a hard heart to look at him running up and down the touchline in the aftermath of Arsenal’s decisive third goal and think that he should rein it in. The game was a huge test of his management and he came through it. He deserved any celebration he wanted.
Come on. What do we want? Managers and players wearing hair shirts? Should we frown on celebrations when a player scores a goal? We complain – all of us – about the spectre of VAR sucking the joy out of celebrations and then we condemn players and managers for losing themselves in the joy of the moment.
This is a different age. Fans live for moments, not just outcomes. More and more supporters are there for one game, one visit, one treat, not for the entire season. This is the Instagram generation. Football supporters want instant gratification. They don’t want to be told the players can’t celebrate anything with them until May. And I don’t blame them.
Celebrations are part of the iconography of football and many of the best ones, the ones that we cherish, are not always connected with winning trophies. Remember Jose Mourinho’s sprint and knee slide on the touchline at Old Trafford in 2004 when he was manager of Porto? That was during a Round of 16 tie.
Jurgen Klopp celebrates in front of the Kop after many home games and it is an uplifting symbol of togetherness. Perhaps the most famous celebration of all is the touchline falling down dance of Brian Kidd and Alex Ferguson when Manchester United came from behind to take the lead against Sheffield Wednesday in April 1993.
Liverpool Jurgen Klopp is known for his passionate celebrations on the Anfield touchline
The win against Wednesday took United two points clear of Aston Villa with five games to play. It didn’t decide anything but it was felt to be significant at the time, just as Arsenal felt Sunday’s victory was significant.
If we have lost a bit of our traditional English reserve, if we celebrate a little more readily, it’s a good thing. We don’t have to keep it all in any more. We don’t need to treat triumph and disaster the same. We don’t have to disguise our emotions. We’re not Victorians.
It’s absurd to suggest you can only celebrate when you win a trophy. It’s absurd to suggest you can only commune with the fans when a campaign is complete. Joy’s a precious thing in sport. Let’s not make a ration book for it.
Maybe Mrs Silva needs to look closer to home
Isabelle Silva, the wife of veteran Chelsea centre back Thiago Silva, is a forthright presence on social media.
A few weeks ago, she posted a picture of the eye-watering bill from her family’s lunch at an exclusive London restaurant.
On Sunday, after her husband’s team were humiliated 4-2 at home by Wolves, she appeared to encourage the club to rid itself of manager Mauricio Pochettino. ‘It’s time to change,’ she posted on X, formerly Twitter.
‘If you wait any longer it will be too late.’ I wonder if anyone has pointed out to Mrs Silva that her husband will be 40 this year.
He has been one of the best defenders of his generation but he is part of a defence that has looked like a collection of clowns in recent weeks. It’s time to change, indeed.
Thiago Silva’s wife Belle (above, with Silva and their two children) took to social media during Chelsea’s defeat by Wolves to call for change at the club
Hamilton’s fire is still burning
Mercedes has been good for Lewis Hamilton and Lewis Hamilton has been good for Mercedes and so if there was some sadness at the news that they will part ways at the end of the approaching Formula 1 season, there was also something inspirational about Hamilton’s decision to make the switch to Ferrari.
With everything he has achieved in the sport, Hamilton could have been forgiven for walking away from the sport or choosing to stick with the familiar for the rest of his career. Instead, in the pursuit of a record eighth world driver’s title, his move to the world’s most popular team will expose him to more pressure and scrutiny than he has ever faced before.
It’s wonderful to see that the fire inside him still burns brightly.
