Are Arsenal over-reliant on their captain and Bukayo Saka once more?
Gary Lineker has denounced notorious Arsenal fan channel AFTV after some fresh obscene remarks about the players from select supporters.
The Match of the Day host was seemingly taken aback by some of the most recent viral posts. One abhorrent piece of criticism directed at captain Martin Odegaard even showed Gunners fan Lee Judges – a regular guest on AFTV – saying he "would've shot" Odegaard if he "had a gun" after Arsenal's 0-0 draw with Everton a little over a week ago.
While Lineker didn't specifically mention Judges by name or the social media post in question, he admitted that clips from the YouTube channel ventured on the "vicious" side off the back of the disappointing result. Arsenal struggled to break Everton down and would have considered it two points dropped in their battle with Liverpool and Chelsea for the title.
Gunners supporter Judges was notably frustrated with Odegaard, who's not been on his best form of late for Mikel Arteta's side and found himself being substituted after 64 minutes against the struggling Toffees.
Discussing the channel that has over 1.7million subscribers on YouTube and has gained mass media attention in the past from the likes of Sky Sports, Lineker told his fellow The Rest is Football podcast co-hosts Alan Shearer and Micah Richards last week that brutal comments like the ones he heard will not help the team in their chase for a first Premier League title since 2004.
"Do you ever see that Arsenal TV thing," Lineker asked, before adding: "Sometimes I get clips come up on Instagram or whatever, and goodness me, some of the fans were laying into their players.
"You think, ‘crikey’ – like viciously, it was horrible. I don’t know how they think that’s going to help if you’re slaughtering your own players to that degree.
"Especially when they’re clearly giving everything week in, week out. It’s not easy playing against a team [Everton] that sits with 10 men behind the ball for the entire game."
Created in 2012 by Arsenal fan Robbie Lyle, AFTV has grown to become one of the biggest football fan channels in the world and have conducted interviews with club legends such as Thierry Henry and Ian Wright. But part of its popularity is actually with rival fan bases who relish seeing the meltdowns from Arsenal fans after a bad day at the office.
While Arsenal got back to winning ways with successive victories over Crystal Palace – 3-2 at home in the Carabao Cup quarter finals followed by a 5-1 thumping away in the league on Saturday (December 21) – their last win came at a price with Bukayo Saka coming off injured. He's set to be out of action for "many weeks", according to Arteta, after suffering a hamstring tear.
"It's not looking good, he's going to be out for many weeks," the Spaniard revealed. Arsenal's first game without the England winger will come at home against Ipswich Town this Friday (December 27).
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