In the aftermath of Emmanuel Adebayor antics over the weekend, it is amazing just how many people are jumping on the back of the City striker, while in no way, shape or form blaming the Arsenal supporters for their part in his actions.
These people who call themselves supporters issued Adebayor with taunts and racist remarks from the warm up to the end, which is almost certain to have provoked the striker’s reaction to scoring against them on Saturday. Yet when they receive a milder taunt back, they become violent and aggressive, like animals trying to escape from their cages to attack their prey.
Adebayor has been labelled senseless for celebrating in front of his former fans, but nothing has been mentioned about Van Persie. How did he celebrate after grabbing Arsenal’s equaliser? Did he run to his own supporters to be engulfed in a sea of arms? Did he want to share his glee with delighted Arsenal fans who watched their team became the first to score past the blues this season? No, he ran towards the City fans, where he mouthed his abuse at them.
Now, the City fans at that end of the ground could easily have reacted in an unsavoury fashion. Had they done so, the club would have by now been charged with failure to control their supporters or something similar. But no, the City fans just stood and took it. Okay, we gave him some abuse but we didn’t try to clamber onto the pitch or throw objects at him. Over the years we have seen supporters banned from matches for throwing objects onto the pitch so the FA must look at the video evidence form Saturday’s game and uncover those who threw objects. If the FA fail to do this, they will fail the poor steward who was knocked unconscious by one of these objects.
Gunners fans will say that they would not have acted like that if Adebayor had not celebrated in such fashion and the finger of blame has been aimed in the Togolese striker for being the catalyst behind the mayhem. However, he was just reacting to the catalyst which was a minority of supporters in the visiting end of the ground.
As supporters, we are expected to behave in a certain way and thankfully the huge majority of supporters across the country know how to behave. Sadly on Saturday, some supporters let the rest of us down.