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By Tony Attwood
It is commonplace to hear and see football supporters denigrate a player on the team they allegedly support simply because he has made a mistake. The fact that they, the supporters, would never even have got into the position of playing for a Premier League team, and so never make such mistakes, is neither here nor there. The player, for whom perhaps millions of pounds have been paid and who probably earns more in a week than you or I earn in a year, is seemingly paid not to make mistakes.
But the reality is that mistakes happen. Bergkamp made mistakes, Henry made mistakes, Wenger made mistakes. So did Chapman, if the records of his matches and the newspapers of the time are to be believed. But what these men had in common was that they made fewer mistakes than most, and balanced those errors with moments of sheer genius.
Countering that, we have the old adage on the notion that some people’s best is not good enough – they should get out of the way and let a real expert take over. And yes, sometimes that is right.
But still, perfectionists can be lauded and celebrated because it is felt that aiming for perfection is a good thing, and so we celebrate the unbeaten season, ignoring some of those drawn games in that campaign, which were not always that good to watch.
Yet there is another problem beyond this, because most research in the subject seems to show that perfectionists are often likely to suffer from poor mental health and higher levels of anxiety, which suggests that it was rather good that the defeat in the third game in the last campaign stopped any such talk before it started.
But a defeat or even a draw against a club thought to be less able than Arsenal can result in criticism, and the statement that we should not be losing to the likes of such a club becomes commonplace. Yet all it does is increase anxiety – it doesn’t help Arsenal at all.
However, research from psychologists has found that rising rates of aiming for perfectionism can be seen among university students, and I would suggest among professional footballers, and it is also demanded by fans. We have seen Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry deliver perfect passes and goals, and we demand it again from whoever is on the pitch now. But that doesn’t help.
In the public at large, this leads to growing mental health issues – and although of course, I have no evidence on this issue, I would suspect the same is true among footballers. So we have people talking about last season’s champions not being as good as the 2003/4 team. It’s an opinion, and the tradition in our country is that we are all entitled to our opinions, but I can’t see that such an opinion helps anyone.
Perhaps it is easy to forget that PSG lost half a dozen league games last season and maybe there is too much focus on Bayern, who lost only one game last year (and two the season before).
But in our society, there is a rise in the drive for perfectionism and certainly in their negative reports of any game that Arsenal fail to win, the media are very much part of this.
And this is not good in any regard since the drive for perfectionism is seen to be a fundamental cause of the youth mental health crisis that most researchers working with young people agree we are facing.
In fact, since the turn of the century, researchers have found a very great increase in the fear of failure among young people, and this of course, can affect those watching a football match played by others as well as those actually on the pitch. This in turn leads to anxiety, depression, and concern about the mistakes one makes.
Now this is very recognisable in football, where crowds will of course, openly make fun of opposition errors and groan at errors made by members of the team they support. Unfortunately, most people (obviously including footballers) react badly to making a mistake. Pointing out a mistake to a player only makes things worse.
This suggests that jeering a mistake by a player in the opposition can be helpful to our team, but groaning at a mistake from one of our own players is never a good move. It raises anxiety and reduces accuracy.
To try to understand why young people are in general, becoming more perfectionist, researchers look at trends over time in broader social and cultural factors: it seems social media has quite a bit to answer for here, along with slowing economic growth which can make it harder for people to reach their (increasingly unrealistic) expectations. If economic opportunity declines, people strive more for success, and become depressed if they don’t achieve it.
In regards to football, I think we can help the Arsenal team by recognising that they strive for perfection, and this undoubtedly helps them achieve better results and makes the football more enjoyable to watch. But criticising anyone when an inventive or even audacious approach doesn’t quite come off, never helps anyone at all, and simply encourages players to be more mundane in the way they play.
Tottenham supporters are good at jeering their own players in such situations. I think we should just let them get on with it, while cheering adventurous play from Arsenal, whether it comes off or not.
