FANS online have hammered Arsenal players for ignoring a young mascot stood on his own in the tunnel before Sunday’s game against Norwich.
The lad, dressed in Gunners kit before leading the team onto the pitch, was spotted awaiting kick-off when his heroes marched past him.
It led to many viewers online taking aim at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Mesut Ozil for not giving the mascot a high-five.
Calum Chambers and Shkodran Mustafi also missed the fan and the English defender later posted on Twitter that he was taken into the dressing room for photos after the game.
And in a later clip, other squad members were seen greeting the youngster having just jumped off the team bus.
As the video went viral, Twitter user George wrote: “Stuff like this really does my head in. How hard is it to acknowledge your mascot?”
Former footballer Stephen Elliott tweeted: “I’d like to think that the rest of the lads acknowledged this Arsenal mascot when they got off the bus at Carrow road Sunday. Sad to see the big name players ignore this little chap. Even a nod of the head would have made his day no doubt.”
Linzo added: “The more I see this video, the more it breaks my heart! That poor bairn must have been so excited being mascot for his favourite team and getting to see/meet players he looks up to and wants to be like one day.”
Chambers, who played in the 2-2 draw as Freddie Ljungberg got his spell as interim boss underway, later explained that mascot Billy was far from ignored.
Along with pictures of the lad and Arsenal’s stars, the player tweeted: “The cameras sometimes only show one side of the story. It’s always great to meet our Junior Gunners mascot in the dressing room before every match.
“We hope Billy had a great day at Norwich on Sunday and it was a pleasure to meet him.”
In reply, Aubameyang hit back at critics with the tweet: “I wanted to sleep but i saw these bull***** then wanted to reply but you quicker than me so I’ll go back to sleep a bit.”
