As a turbulent year comes to an end for Arsenal, it seems like a perfect time to evaluate Arsene Wenger’s increasingly precarious position among the club’s fans.
After starting 2014 on top of the table, humbling defeats to fellow title-chasers saw the Gunners plummet to fourth, but Wenger did finally manage to end his nine-year trophy drought by bagging the FA Cup in May.
However, a flawed transfer strategy in the summer left Arsenal painfully short in key areas going into the new season, and the Gunners have suffered their worst ever start to a league campaign under Wenger.
Tensions boiled over in early December when Arsenal crashed to a 3-2 defeat at Stoke, and many supporters – including sections of diehard away fans – have been vocal in their calling for the Frenchman to step down as boss.
But do the majority of fans share the same view?
Twitter stats reveal a total of 540,724 mentions of #WengerOut, ‘Wenger Out’, ‘Get out Wenger’, and ‘leave now Wenger’ between January 1 and December 22.
While that may initially seem substantial, when compared to Arsenal’s 5million Twitter following, that translates to just 10.8 per cent of the fan base.
However, a more accurate picture can be built when comparing the mentions to ‘active’ Twitter users (people who log in at least once a month), which analytics firm, Twopcharts, revealed is only 24.7 per cent of total users.
So, when the 540,724 anti-Wenger mentions are compared to Arsenal’s estimated ‘active’ Twitter following of 1.2m, the percentage of discontent rockets to 43.8 per cent.
Nevertheless, this still represents favorable support for Wenger on Twitter among Arsenal fans, and the scale is even further titled in the 65-year-old’s favour when you consider one fan can account for multiple mentions over the selected period.
It seems the ‘Wenger Out’ brigade – headed by the likes of Piers Morgan and Claude – still has work to do in convincing the majority of social media users that the Frenchman is no longer the right man for the job.
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