Arsene Wenger in need of a united front as divisions threaten to dismantle Arsenal's season

Poor form, divisions within the fanbase and the threat of a season unravelling have led Wenger to call for a show of unity for the visit of Hull City this weekened

The numbers don't make pleasant reading for the French manager (Getty Images)

Arsene Wenger has pointedly called for a show of unity at the Emirates for Arsenal’s home match against a resolute Hull City, after a recent spell that has seen some of the worst dissent in his reign.

Amid an increasingly hostile atmosphere amongst the fans, the sound and fury in the stands has been complemented by a series of images that have already come to define a disappointing season: Alexis Sanchez getting angry on the pitch; Mesut Ozil getting easily beaten to a header in the defeat to Chelsea; and fans getting out banners criticising the manager himself.

When it was put to Wenger whether he expected more of a positive effect from those two highest-profile players to get the team out of this slump, the 67-year-old said the mistake now would be to single people out, and the club should instead band together.

Those words follow on from requests to fans for everyone to get “behind their team” in the way that Tottenham Hotspur and other clubs do, by moving away from “the blame culture” that surrounds such periods. The situation has now reached a tipping point where it feels the majority of fans are blaming the manager which, of course, adds more of an edge to his comments.

“The team wins and the team loses,” Wenger said. “When you win sometimes some players are singled out as they are treated like exceptional players but when you don’t do well sometimes just focus on a little bit more of the team aspect and not try to blame each other. Because the blame culture is part of the perception of people as you say, but what is important is that we show a united [front]…

“We have a good opportunity to show that we are a united strong unit and that we bounce back. When you don’t win you cannot as well say that all is well. You have to analyse that something is not right. It is our job to find where and to have a strong united response.”

Earlier on, Wenger had said the club “have no chance" of matching the rest of the top six if the fans don’t fully get behind the side, and conspicuously mentioned Spurs.

“We absolutely have to be united or we have no chance to do it. You have Tottenham, everyone is in the fight and everyone is behind their team. We have to do exactly the same, even if we had two disappointing results [against Watford and Chelsea].”

Those comments feel all the more pointed because, aside from the atmosphere during matches, they come at a time when the more exaggeratedly fervent views aired on internet fan TV have come to dominate and influence general discussion on the club in a way never really seen before. Wenger is said by those closest to him to be aware of the nature of content on ‘Arsenal Fan TV’ and, even though it doesn’t really bother him and he doesn’t watch it to actually publicly acknowledge it, his comments did feel like an attempt to rein in some of the rancour; to remind people of what the team actually needs: support.

That could be felt even more keenly on Saturday, given that Hull are precisely the type of side that tend to create frustrating occasions for Arsenal. Their new manager already created one of Wenger’s periodic crises even before arriving in the Premier League. Marco Silva claimed a 3-2 win at the Emirates with his Olympiakos side in the Champions League group stage in September 2015, leading to another intense round of public questions for Wenger then.

Since the Portuguese took over at Hull, they have conceded just three goals in four league games - compared to 44 in 20 before that - with two clean sheets coming against Liverpool and Manchester United. He also beat the former last week, and claimed a win off the latter in the League Cup to go with the 0-0 draw at Old Trafford in the league. The match at the Emirates certainly has the ingredients for a long afternoon for Arsenal, especially if they don’t score early on.

Wenger himself praised Silva, but said the ingredients had also been there at Hull for something, due to the good work done by Mike Phelan

“He is doing well,” the Arsenal manager said of Silva. “There are many top managers in Europe. They all come to England. I believe as well that they played well with Mike Phelan but so many times they were not rewarded by results and they had injuries as well. So overall I think they always played good football Hull.”

Arsenal are going to have to significantly sharpen up to claim a win off them, especially as Hector Bellerin is expected to miss out. Crucial to adding pace to their attack on the right, the full-back didn’t train until Friday, after suffering a head injury and having to immediately go off in last Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Chelsea. He instead spent most of the week going through a series of tests to assess his condition. Although Bellerin still has an outside chance of playing against Hull, the likelihood is that he will not return to the squad until the Champions League last-16 first leg away to Bayern Munich on Wednesday.