#AgainstModernFootball - the fickleness of fans

Jose Mourinho held up three fingers to indicate the number of league titles he won as Chelsea manager. He’d been goaded into a response by supporters near the Stamford Bridge dugout calling out the Manchester United manager for being a ‘Judas,’ as they so politely put it. A ‘Judas’ for what, they didn’t specify.

Were they saying Mourinho is a ‘Judas’ for being sacked by Chelsea, not once but twice? For the way the club failed to stand by their man in times of trouble last season? Were they accusing Mourinho of being a ‘Judas’ for taking a job when he was out of work? Or maybe it was the way Mourinho moulded Chelsea into the club they are today that made him a ‘Judas.’

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Of course, to accuse the Portuguese coach of betraying the Blues in any way after all he did for the Stamford Bridge club is outrageous. It could be argued that Mourinho is the most significant figure in Chelsea’s history, perhaps after Roman Abramovich. Even in his departure, Mourinho deserves credit. The team that sits atop the Premier League table by 10 points was largely assembled by him, even if Antonio Conte is getting the most out of them.

It’s illustrative of the way modern football is, where fickleness is to be expected. The sport only remembers what has only just happened. The harsh reception Mourinho was given at Stamford Bridge on Monday night was just the latest episode in football’s continuing opera of fickleness. The game and those who watch it have never been so volatile.

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Look at how Arsene Wenger is currently being forced out of Arsenal. Of course, there are valid gripes to be aired about the Frenchman’s management of the North London side, but he, just like Mourinho at Chelsea, is credited with building the Gunners into the club they are today. He might not have got his hands dirty with mortar, but Wenger did more to construct the Emirates Stadium than anyone else. It’s not his fault that the tickets to watch a game in it are so expensive.

Going on the protests held against Wenger this season, though, you’d think he was Robert Mugabe (one fan actually does think he’s “the Robert Mugabe of Arsenal”). Perhaps the only figure at Arsenal subject to the pendulum of fickleness more than Wenger is Olivier Giroud, who has become a personal weathervane for which way the wind is blowing at the Emirates.

This is the byproduct of football’s, and by extension society’s, culture of immediacy. History counts for nothing, with the only thing that matters the here and now. Wenger’s time at Arsenal may well have run its course, but fickleness means he will be denied the respect he undoubtedly deserves. It can’t be long until a plane towing a banner demanding ‘Wenger Out’ flies over North London.

Such an environment can’t be conducive to the performance of elite players. Former Spurs midfielder Nabil Bentaleb addressed this last year after joining Schalke, where he compared the support of Premier League and Bundesliga fans. “If you lose there, nobody supports you in the stadium,” he said of England’s top flight.

Football fans have always been fickle, but new thresholds of fickleness are being breached. Had Denis Law scored the goal to relegate Manchester United as a Manchester City player in 2017 would he ever have been built a statue outside Old Trafford? It seems unlikely. United fans probably would have burned effigies of him instead.

As long as you keep winning or don’t have the gall to take another job at another club when you are ultimately sacked football fans will support you all the way. Otherwise they’ll call you a ‘Judas’ or toss their torn up season tickets at the dugout. Of course, start winning again and they’ll be taping them back together.