Arsenal have made huge changes to away ticketing in recent years following some very noisy campaigning from a very small minority of fans.
First they got rid of the away scheme, then they introduced random pickups, and this summer they went after supportersclubs. Finally, they made it easier for r and silver members to get away tickets, allowing them to buy at the same point as golds if they had the relevant credits (IE if you have 10+ credits, you can buy tickets at the 10+ window regardless of your membership).
All of this was done to supposedly stop away tickets being a “closed shop” and make it easier for those lower down the chain to get access for away tickets.
The upcoming Bayern Munich Champions League game has not sold well. A mixture of us being to Munich more times in recent years than some fans have had sex, and the cost of flights, hotels, and more.
On Tuesday, the club announced the new sale windows for the match:
• Window 3: Platinum, Gold, Travel Club, Siver and Red Members with 10+ credits
• Window 4: Platinum, Gold, Travel Club, Siver and Red Members with 5+ credits
• Window 5: Platinum, Gold, Travel Club, Siver and Red Members with 0+ credits
And almost like clockwork, the complaints came in.
They cried that why should someone with 1-4 credits be treated the same as someone with 0 credits. That the club should introduce a 1+ credit window. And this just shows that this was never about opening a closed shop, it was about these fans getting in the shop and ensuring the door closed behind them.
A big complaint was how fans who have followed The Arsenal through the tough times had more priority for away games than someone who has recently bought a club Level season ticket and suddenly wants to go Spurs away. These fans did not want priority buying. They wanted equal opportunity.
But now they have 2 or 3 credits, they want priority over those fans who have 0 credits. Who were unable to go to Napoli (due to the short notice) or Ipswich.
So they think the system is unfair when they are unable to go to games, and now they think the system is unfair as the door is open for others to “compete” for tickets against them.
Due to the influence some of these fans have (through the fans forum and being loud on social media), the club have buckled. They have changed Window 5 to exclude Silver and Red Members on 0 credits.
It all shows the campaigning by a few fans is bollocks.
They are happy to exclude members who do not have as many credits as them, but want to put limitations on those members who have more credits than them. All they want is “fair system that suits them”, and that they are happy restricting other fans from obtain tickets, as long as it is to their advantage.
The club has made huge errors in the way they have gone after away fans in recent years, and the result is away ends are now poor, with groups of mates now broken up, and the atmosphere has suffered as a result. But hey, as long as Tarquin or Shazeed in Club Level can now get a ticket who cares about anyone else?
After all the noise last season and this surrounding Premier League decision making, the Key Match Incident (KMI) Panel confirm what we all knew – that Arsenal get unfavourable decisions and Man City get a lot of mistakes in their favour.
Sunderland penalty for as wrong
The most recent development concerns Arsenal’s 2-0 victory at Sunderland.
During that match, Sunderland were awarded a penalty after Dan Ballard and Arsenal defender Ezri Konsa came together inside the area. Mikel Arteta was furious with the decision at the time, while David Raya subsequently saved the spot-kick.
The KMI Panel subsequently backed Arsenal’s underlying complaint.
The panel unanimously judged that the on-field decision to award Sunderland a penalty was incorrect. It concluded that Ballard pulled Konsa onto him, despite Konsa initiating the contact.
There is an important wrinkle, however.
The panel did not believe VAR should have intervened. By a 3-2 majority, it concluded that the referee’s mistake did not reach the Premier League’s high threshold for a clear and obvious error.
So Arsenal were, according to the review, on the wrong end of an incorrect decision — but the VAR process itself was deemed correct.
That distinction is exactly why the KMI system exists.
Villa Park was another one
Sunderland wasn’t the first time Arsenal had found themselves on the wrong side of an official review.
In their victory at Aston Villa, Arsenal were denied a late penalty after Ian Maatsen’s challenge on Bruno Guimarães. The KMI Panel subsequently ruled that a penalty should have been awarded and that VAR should have intervened.
The panel considered the challenge reckless, noting that Maatsen made contact with Guimarães’ standing leg without touching the ball. It also concluded that a second yellow card should have followed.
So there are two clear examples of Arsenal decisions being judged incorrectly by the panel.
Neither ultimately changed the result of the relevant Arsenal match, but that doesn’t make the decisions irrelevant.
And then there is Manchester City
Manchester City’s situation is slightly different, but considerably more high-profile.
In the Manchester derby, Erling Haaland’s winning goal against Manchester United was initially ruled out for offside before VAR overturned the decision.
The problem? City’s Enzo Fernández was in an offside position and attempted to play the ball, with the KMI Panel unanimously concluding that his position affected the defenders and goalkeeper.
The panel therefore judged that the VAR intervention which resulted in the goal being awarded was incorrect.
That goal stood, of course, and City won the derby 1-0.
Man City benefit whilst Arsenal punished
This is where the numbers need a little care.
It is fair to say that Arsenal have had two confirmed incorrect decisions go against them: the Sunderland penalty and the missed Villa Park penalty.
It is also fair to say that Manchester City have benefited from a major incorrect VAR outcome, namely Haaland’s disallowed-then-awarded goal against Manchester United.
But the Premier League’s official KMI findings do not currently establish two separate incorrect refereeing decisions going in City’s favour.
Indeed, another recent City incident – Josko Gvardiol’s disallowed goal against Sunderland being overturned for offside – was assessed as a correct VAR intervention.
That doesn’t invalidate the frustration Arsenal supporters may feel. It simply means the argument is strongest when it sticks to the decisions that have actually been independently reviewed.
And perhaps that’s the most interesting part of this whole debate.
The KMI system is providing supporters with something that football arguments rarely have: an official post-match assessment of whether the referee got it right.
For Arsenal, the current record makes uncomfortable reading. For City, the Haaland incident remains a major officiating error that directly affected a match result.
What happens next will be worth watching — because with the season only a few weeks old, the refereeing conversation is clearly not going away anytime soon.
There have been trophies, stadium developments, record-breaking transfers and moments thatwill live forever in Arsenal history.
But Mikel Arteta agreeing a new contract yesterday might just be the most important thing Arsenal’s board has done this century.
That sounds like an outrageous claim when you remember the early 2000s, the move to the Emirates, the end of Arsène Wenger’s reign and everything that followed. But look at what Arsenal are now, and then look at where we were when Arteta arrived in December 2019.
The difference is enormous.
And it is not simply about winning football matches – Arsenal finally have a long-term identity again.
Arteta inherited an Arsenal team that had lost its way.
The club had finished fifth under Arsène Wenger in 2016-17, sixth in 2017-18 and fifth again in 2018-19 before Unai Emery’s reign unravelled. When Arteta took over, Arsenal were sitting 10th in the Premier League.
He was not arriving as an established managerial superstar. This was his first senior managerial job.
What followed was a rebuild that required patience, difficult decisions and, crucially, an extraordinary amount of faith from the hierarchy.
The FA Cup arrived in his first season. There were setbacks afterwards. Arsenal finished eighth in 2020-21. They finished fifth the following campaign.
There was plenty of ammunition for people who believed Arsenal had made the wrong appointment. Instead, the club stuck with him.
That patience eventually produced a team capable of challenging Manchester City, returning Arsenal to the Champions League and finishing second in the Premier League three consecutive times.
Then, last season, Arsenal finally crossed the line.
The 2025-26 Premier League title ended a 22-year wait. Arsenal had gone from a club wondering where its identity had gone toEnglish champions under the manager who had been trusted to rebuild it.
And that is why yesterday mattered.
The board isn’t simply renewing the contract of a manager who won a trophy.
It is reaffirming the strategy that got Arsenal here.
There is an understandable temptation to view anew contract as a reward for winning the league.
It is that, of course. But it is also much more than that.
Arteta has already demonstrated that hisArsenal can compete at the very highest level. Last season, the club won its first league title since 2004 and also reached only its second Champions League final, eventually losing to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties.
That combination matters.
Arsenal are no longer simply trying to get back into the Champions League. We are trying to win it.
They are no longer trying to challenge for the Premier League. We are defending it.
And we are no longer wondering whether the Arteta project can produce the biggest domestic prize. It already has.
The question now is what comes next.
That makes continuity incredibly valuable.
Arsenal’s biggest asset right now is not any single player. The clubs can replace players. They can replace executives. They can rebuild squads.
But replacing the person who has spent nearly seven years establishing how the entire organisationoperates is different.
Arteta’s influence stretches far beyond the touchline.
His Arsenal is recognisable in the way the team plays, the standards expected at thetraining ground, the recruitment profile and the culture surrounding the first team.
The meticulous environment Arteta has cultivated at Arsenal, including unusual exercises designed to improve players’ alertness and prepare them for unexpectedmatch-day situations, is now being copied by managers up and down the country.
Whether you love every tactical decision he makes is beside the point. Arsenal know what they are trying to be. That is incredibly difficult to build.
And once you have built it, you don’t casually throw it away.
Arsenal’s board has not always enjoyed universal approval from supporters. That is football.
Every transfer becomes a referendum. Every contract negotiation becomes a drama. Everypoor result produces questions about ownership, recruitment, coaching and ambition.
But the decision to continue backing Arteta deserves enormous credit. Especially because the club could easily have panicked during those difficult early periods.
They didn’t.
Instead, they backed the manager through an FA Cup triumph followed by a disappointing league campaign. They backed him as thesquad was rebuilt. They backed him when Arsenal were close but not quite close enough.
And now they have backed him again.
According to reports, Arteta’s new agreement will take him beyond a decade at the Emirates. The exact contractual details are still being formally completed, but the agreement represents a clear commitment from both sides.
That is what a long-term football project issupposed to look like.
But there is still work today. This Arsenal are not a finished project. Far from it.
The 3-0 defeat at Brighton last weekend was a useful reminder that being champions does notmake you invincible. Arsenal had won their first four league games before that defeat and were comprehensively beaten at the Amex.
There will be more bad afternoons.
There will be transfer decisions that don’t work.
There will be tactical arguments.
There will be moments when supporters wonder why Arteta has done that.
Good.
That’s football.
The important thing is that Arsenal now have the stability to deal with those moments without immediately questioning the entire directionof the club.
That stability is worth more than another shiny transfer announcement.
Think about what Arsenal have spent the last decade searching for.
Stability.
Identity.
Elite standards.
A coherent recruitment strategy.
A team capable of competing for the biggest trophies.
A manager capable of developing players while simultaneously dealing with the enormous pressure that comes with managing Arsenal.
They now have all of those things.
And the person at the centre of it has chosen to stay.
That’s why this contract feels different.
The Premier League title was the culmination of years of work. The new contract is the decision to protect that work rather than treatthe championship as the conclusion of the story.
It is a statement that Arsenal don’t want one great season.They want an era.
And perhaps that is the most important distinction of all.
Arsenal’s board has spent years trying to put the club back where supporters believe it belongs.
Yesterday, they made the decision to keep the person who finally got them there.
The trophies will ultimately decide how Arteta’s reign is remembered.
The Champions League may determine whetherit becomes genuinely historic.
But whatever happens next, extending Mikel Arteta is arguably the clearest sign yet that Arsenal finally understand something they have been searching for throughout this century:
The most important thing isn’t simply getting back to the top. It’s building something strong enough to stay there.
