By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal v Chelsea: a visit from little Stamford Creek
- Why the negative tendencies of commentators discussing Arsenal always end badly
- If the nutters are not stopped, Arsenal will lose their chance of trophies
Only two Arsenal players have been put in danger of getting unnecessary and pointless injuries through playing for England: Miles Lewis- Skelly and Declan Rice Losing either of them to injury in the way that for example Martin Odegaard was lost to the club by playing for Norway, could be a disaster in the final run in. As ever, we can but cross all fingers. The next England match is on 21 March against Albania. The second is 24 March against Latvia. Norway are away to Moldova.
In terms of the next Champs League game for Arsenal, Thierry Henry has said that there is no point even turning up for the Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid unless Arsenal believe they can cause an upset. At least that is what the Metro say he said. I’m not sure he would have said that, although knowing to whom he was speaking, Thierry might well have consierably lowered the intellectual level of his comments. The last we heard of him he was working for Amazon Prime Video for their Premier League and Ligue 1 programmes, but I’m not sure what he is doing now. If you know, please do write in.
And while considering people who are or have been well paid, the news is out that Arsenal’s highest paid director earned £2m in the last financial year – up by around two thirds of a million from the year before. So that’s where my season ticket money has been going. And of course that is also why season ticket prices are going up by between three percent and five percent next season. This comes at a time when other clubs have said they are not putting prices up – but then clubs don’t all put prices up together. Anyway, prices at Arsenal for season tickets next season, will range between £1126 and £2112.
Plus there is the introduction of the 19-game season ticket, which just covers the League games, and for those who opt for that, that will indeed reduce the price they have to fork out each summer.
Last season, Arsenal had a turnover of around two-thirds of a billion pounds, up on match days by over a quarter. Rather amusingly, prior to that, Tottenham had been taking more money on a matchday than Arsenal, despite ending up 26 points and four places below Arsenal and having a defence that managed to let in 34 more goals than Arsenal.
Meanwhile, the club has seemingly decided to do nothing about next summer being the 100th anniversary of Herber Chapman’s arrival at Arsenal, which makes the long-running series on Herbert Chapman’s life which is appearing on the Arsenal History Society website, all the more important. A new episode is currently under construction and you can see an index of the articles so far here.
Perhaps it is also worth noting that the owners of Arsenal operate primarily in the USA, where prices are often considerably higher for matches than they are in the Premier League and Champions League. It may well be that Kroenke Sports and Entertainment are aiming to take Arsenal’s prices up to a level that is comparable with the American “franchises” that they own.
Of course, one of the problems that the Kroenke family face in this regard is that the overall operation has to make money and that means success on the pitch and higher prices – not least to pay their own higher salaries.
However while anyone looking at the last two seasons and the possible outcome of this season in a logical and reasoned way will see that this is now one of the best runs Arsenal have ever had in terms of overall results, the media are still utterly on Arsenal’s backs, ceaselessly complaining that the most simple issues (such as buying a new centre forward) have been got completely wrong.
It would appear so far that both the owners and the management of the club have not the slightest interest in the tales made up by the media, but at some stage they will have to recognise that some fans not only read, watch and listen to the media, and despite any form of evidence to back up their claims they actually believe that too.
Up to this season, Arsenal have been improving under Arteta year on year, and this season there is a very good reason (ie injuries) why that run has been stopped. But as we have pointed out, even coming second three years running, if that is what is achieved, is going to make this era one of Arsenal’s best ever, even though the media and their camp followers think the situation is unbearably bad.
