As Manchester City's players celebrated their 2-1 victory over Arsenal last weekend, Erling Haaland strolled around the pitch with a smirk while Arsenal's players stood in stunned silence. In the stands, City supporters unfurled a banner reading: "Panic on the streets of London." Arsenal's nine-point lead from mid-March suddenly felt like a distant memory.

The conversation that followed was just as pointed. On BBC's Match of the Day, pundits Wayne Rooney and Danny Murphy discussed the title run-in. When host Mark Chapman questioned the nervy atmosphere at the Emirates, Rooney was direct: "The fans have a big role to play. Arsenal fans need to get behind the team." He later elaborated on his podcast, saying, "I think for Arsenal to win the league, the fans need to play their part."

City's subsequent 1-0 win over Burnley pushed Arsenal off the top of the table for the first time since September. At the other end of the standings, Tottenham Hotspur face a genuine relegation scare with five games remaining. Two London clubs, opposite ends of the table — and the same question hanging over both: can fan pressure actually cost a team a title, or drag another into the Championship?

When a big lead was not enough

History offers sobering answers. In the 1995-96 season, Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United held a 12-point lead over Alex Ferguson's Manchester United in February. They never reached the finish line. Newcastle's exhilarating side — featuring Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Faustino Asprilla, and Peter Beardsley — gradually tightened up as expectation mounted.

"When you bring thought into any process of sport, everything slows down a little bit and you overthink things," Ferdinand tells ESPN. "You can feel there's anxiety in the stadium, and expectation you're trying to live up to. But you can't quite get there. The supporters feel our tension, and you feel the nervousness."

Goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, also part of that Newcastle squad and now an ESPN pundit, recalls the shift in mentality: "You go from playing with freedom, to knowing that if you misplace a pass, the fans will get on your back. So your mindset shifts. You're thinking, 'Shall I play this 30-yard pass?' No, instead you play the five-yard pass to keep it simple. When you feel the pressure and tension, it changes everything about your game."

Liverpool's painful reminder

In the 2013-14 season, Liverpool required just seven points from their final three games to end a long league title drought. The infamous Steven Gerrard slip in a 2-0 home defeat to Chelsea, combined with a 3-3 draw against Crystal Palace in the next match, left them second — two points behind City.

Jordan Henderson, suspended and watching from the stands that day at Anfield, later wrote in his autobiography: "It was like torture. If my red card against City was bad, the reaction to [Demba Ba's goal] around the stadium was even more intense, going by the gasps. The whole thing was scrambling my head."

A former Premier League coach, speaking to ESPN anonymously, put it plainly: "Fan tension is one of those intangibles that really does impact performance. It's not just boos per se — silence can be just as impactful at critical moments. Players often say that they are not affected by the reactions of the crowd, but I think it is all closely related to team confidence."

Relegation battles carry the same weight

At the bottom of the table, the psychology is no different. Ferdinand experienced it first-hand when he joined West Ham midway through the 2002-03 season. Despite training alongside the likes of Paolo Di Canio, Michael Carrick, and Joe Cole, the matchday atmosphere proved suffocating.

"In training, we were pinging the balls around, no problem," Ferdinand says. "But then in the matches — I remember we played Charlton and you could see no one wanted the ball. You didn't want to be the first one to make a mistake, knowing the crowd would be on them immediately."

John Carver, who managed Newcastle through a survival battle in 2014-15, adds: "When the crowd is behind you, you can feel the good feeling, you can smell it. But the players are human beings — you can also hear the moans and groans, no doubt."

The psychological toll on players

Football mindset coach Steve Sallis, who has worked with numerous elite players and clubs, describes the human cost plainly. "I've had Premier League players phoning me in tears after they were being booed by their fans. At that moment, they want to retire," he tells ESPN. "Imagine going to work and getting booed for making a mistake. It becomes personal, and your family gets attacked, too."

Yet support can also serve as rocket fuel. Hislop recalls how Portsmouth's shock win over Manchester United in April 2004 transformed their newly promoted side's season: "That result changed our season. The fans responded to that, and we were okay from there."

Sallis sums it up: "All players are affected by fans — I don't care what anyone says. They are."