Category Archives: Arsenal

The GOOD and BAD of Arsenal’s end of season ticketing review

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Morning! Yesterday the club published their end of season ticketing review 2023/24.

Firstly a bit of praise for the club. This sort of transparency is something many have been requesting for some time. Whilst you may or may not agree with the way tickets are distributed, it is a positive that club have outlined exactly how many tickets have been applied for and bought at all levels throughout the season.

Now for some thoughts on the review.

Our goal remains the same: to put tickets in the hands of our supporters, with a focus on our paying Silver and Red members. 

Touting is nothing new, and Arsenal are not the only club to have problems with it. If there was an easy solution, someone would have come up with one by now – football, music, festivals and more have all been targets of touts for decades.

I actually do not think ticket touts cause a big a problem as some make out. I would be surprised if there was much more then 1,000 tickets a game touted. Even half of that would surprise me. But touts and a presence on game day and make for a big story on social media when tickets are going for thousands.

My view is that our ticketing issues is more to do with the 75% reduction in silver allocation rather than ticket touts.

During the 2023/24 season, we banned 20,000 members and 54 season ticket holders for attempting to obtain tickets in unauthorised ways

The club needs to continue working against both touts and those that use bots to buy tickets.

Whilst some will claim to be a “victim” of an unfair crackdown, it is likely that either they, or someone buying on their behalf, has used a bot to buy tickets. This season should be a learning curve for fans about lending your membership to someone else to buy on.

At the start of the 2023/24 season, we introduced a ballot system…we believe this is the fairest way to allocate tickets to Silver and Red Members.  

Let’s be honest, the ballot has been a shit show.

We have long term silver members who have been to 15+ games regularly every year for a decade now only able to get 1 or 2 tickets a season.

The idea of the ballot was to reduce tickets that went to touting and get rid of the £10m scramble”. All it has done is reduce tickets going to some of the most loyal fans, and create a new scramble for tickets on the Ticket Exchange.

What I would say is we all moaned that the existing system of logging on at 10am on sale day did not work, we all demanded change, so I am reluctant to criticize the change too much.

I still do not see many other options other than a return to the 10m scramble or a continuation of the ballot. what needs to happen is some tweeks to the system. And again, I do not think the issues are the ballot. It is the reduction of allocation to silver members.

You can present statistics however you wish, and the above does make interesting reading.

What it highlights to me is the importance of the Ticket Exchange. The encouragement for season ticket holders to “use it or lose it” will lead to more tickets flowing down to members.

Mid-way through the season, we limited Ticket Exchange to members who were unsuccessful in the ballot. 

Arsenal showed that they were learning as they went along with the ballot. The change to limit Ticket Exchange to those who were unsuccessful in the ballot should be seen as a good thing.

The downside is it potentially alienates those that do not know if they can make a game until close to it (such as shift workers, or those that work overseas). They now struggle to pick up a last minute ticket when they realise they are available. But like with any change in system, there will always be winners and losers.

I was surprised to see that 6 fans applied for all 25 ballots and failed to get a ticket. I feel for those fans and the club risk losing their support. Can the club introduce a weighting system where the more ballots you are unsuccessful for, the more chance you have winning? I am sure there are very clever computer boffins that could create an algorithm…

I imagine the club will be celebrating 93,000 member obtained tickets as their aim is for “every fan to go once” rather than 10,000 fans going 9 games. and this creates an issue of fairness.

You now have fellas who have been to most games on their silver, now only able to go 4 or 5 times a season. Whilst others who were never quick enough to grab a ticket are now getting to 2 or 3 games.

Those fans that want to go to a lot of games are punished, with those who only want to go to a handful are rewarded. Everyone will have a different opinion as to which is the correct target audience.

We have implemented a functionality for members to be able to choose their top two price band preferences that they wish to purchase as part of a successful ballot application. 

Another issue with the ballot was you did not get a choice of where you sat or what you paid. You just got assigned a seat.

Not everyone can afford the top tier prices – Cat A can be as expensive as £141. The mid-season change at least allows fans to protect their pocket and only apply for the banding that they can afford.

We can confirm that 24 season tickets were cancelled last season due to lack of use. During the 2023/24 season, supporters had to use their season ticket (attend themselves or make their season ticket available on Ticket Exchange or Ticket Transfer) for 17 out of 22 matches. For the 2024/25 season, this will change to 20 out of 23.  

This is a positive.

Put simply, if you can not attend the majority of games (and are too lazy to put your ticket on Ticket Exchange) then you should not have a season ticket.

The club have always made it clear that they will consider re-instate your season ticket under exceptional circumstances. My advice is be pro-active. if something helps, drop the club an email early doors explaining why you (or a loved one) can not go and is unable to use the Ticket Exchange. Do not wait until you are informed you are losing your season ticket and then take to social media to complain.

The ballot will continue next season. Members who applied to 20 or more ballots and were not successful once [during 2023/24] will be invited to purchase a ticket from a select number of fixtures before Christmas.

Around 300 members applied for 20 or more ballots and were not successful last season. The fact they are being prioritised for a ticket before Christmas is a positive, but it does not make the system fairer.

“Sorry you missed out 20 times last season, here is one ticket for this”. It would be good to hear from the 300 fans whether they are happy with this?

Final thoughts

The issue remains that pre-Covid, 7,200 seats were allocated to silver members. since football returned, that number has declined every season and now sits at just 1,800.

Whilst the club will point to an average of 5,800 silver members getting tickets for games, it is still lower than previous. The difference is also more than 1,400 as the 7.2k does not include those who bought on the TX back in 2018.

Their have been some rumours that the club are not issuing new season tickets this summer (or at least reduced the percentage of non-renewals that go for re-purchase).

After Covid, those that jumped the queue and purchased a temporary season ticket were allowed to keep it. This came out of the silver allocation. I am hopeful that the above is true and that the aim is to return season ticket levels back to pre-Covid numbers, with the silver allocation getting boosted.

There are still too many tickets that do not go to the ballots (sponsors, holiday packages, an increase to players and staff families). If the club wants their putting tickets in the hands of our supporters philosophy (which is correct), they need to look at how many tickets they give out to non-supporters.

Enjoy your Tuesdsay!

Keenos

Arsenal in “no rush” to sign new striker

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Every time I see a post on social media linking us to a new player, the responses are flooded with “a striker is more urgent”.

When it was confirmed by the club that David Raya was joining, I begun counting how often fans replied “but what about a striker”. I soon stopped. Likewise, the links to Bolonga central defender Riccardo Calafiori has been met with “not another defender, we need focus on a striker”.

The reality is, Edu and Mikel Arteta are in no rush to sign a new striker. And they are completely correct.

Firstly, transfers are not linear. You do not focus on signing one single player.

At any one time, our scouts are watching 100s of players. These then get filtered down to our actual targets and enquiries are made in the background between ourselves and the players intermediaries to establish where they would be an interest from the player.

Once we have established interest from the play, the discussions with the club commence.

At any one time, we are talking to many different intermediaries and clubs to try and do deals. What does not happen is we only talk to one club about one player, and then when that deal is done we move onto the next.

Following this, different deals take different amounts of time.

The deal for David Raya was agreed 12 months ago. It was a move that was always going to be made permanent this summer, so I am not sure why some fans acted confused as to why we have announced his deal before signing a new striker. Raya was always going to be our first major signing of the summer.

And doing a deal for Joshua Kimmich or Calafiori is done before a new striker comes in does not mean we have failed to prioritise a forward. It just means those deals were easier, quicker to do.

You do not artificially delay the signing of a target just to appease fans who demand a striker. This is not a PR game where you sign a striker first to make it appear that you have prioritised the position. You announce your signings as and when they happen.

Last season it was clear that Declan Rice was our number one transfer target, but he ended up being the last player of we signed (permanently). It would have been incompetent to delay the announcement of Kai Havertz or Jurrien Timber – and risk losing out on them – just so that we could announce Rice first.

Just because a new striker has not yet been signed on 8 July, it does not mean that we are not prioritising the position.

There could be many reasons why we have not yet signed a new striker.

The first could be that the transfer window is barely a week old, and we are ensuring we buy the right players regardless of how quickly or slowly the deals are done. We also have the fact that the Euro’s are still on. Very few big deals happen during an international tournament.

It also remains a fact that there are not many top international strikers. This is higlighted by the top scorers at both Euro 2024 and Copa America.

Any forward that comes in must be a better option that Kai Havertz.

Playing as a striker in the 2nd half of the season, Havertz grabbed himself 8 goals and 7 assists in 13 games. Were we being linked with a striker who finished the season like that, and is currently the 3rd top scorer at the Euro’s, we would all be excited.

This is not to say that I do not think we will buy an attacker, but more that he has shown he can be a genuine option up front and therefore signing a similar style striker might no longer be as urgent.

What is more important than simply buying a striker is that we sign the right forward. Whether that is Viktor Gyokeres, Joshua Zirkzee, Lois Openda or some other name. It is important to not go too far down the target last just to simply sign a striker. That is how you end up with a Lucas Perez.

The club also might be looking outside a centre forward.

Attackers come in all shapes and sizes, and I would not be upset if we signed Nico Williams instead of a forward, and then went with Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Gabi Martinelli as our centre forward options next season. Williams also has the strength, power and technique to play down the middle.

A forward – whether central or wide – is clearly a key target for us this summer. Just because we have mot signed one yet does not mean it is not a priority. It just means we are not in a rush.

Keenos

Saka is no longer Arsenal and England’s “Star Boy”

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Hope you are having a brilliant Sunday.

The weather in Essex is extremely changeable right now. Raining one moment, bright sunshine the next. I spent yesterday building my new garden furniture ahead of the England game. It is still unused!

I was delighted that Bukayo Saka scored yesterday and nailed his penalty.

Saka has become a bit of a “hate figure” for opposing fans. They are quick to call him to be dropped, call him overrated and have a go at him.

I am not sure how anyone can hate on him. He plays football in the right way, does not throw himself to the floor or look to injure opponents, and is a bright, humble young man. Saka is not only a credit to Arsenal, but also to England, and a huge credit to his parents.

For me, Saka is England’s best attacker. He is levels above Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer, whilst Harry Kane is clearly on the wain.

Foden is brilliant, but he is helped out at Manchester City by being their worst forward. That means he gets less attention and is gifted more space as opposing teams focus on stopping Kevin de Bruyne, Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva. Saka is often doubled up for at Arsenal and still excels. I am not sure Foden would reach that same level.

Bellingham meanwhile is a superstar in the making, but he has the tendency to drift in and out of games. He still has levels to go up once he becomes more consistent. Being a top midfielder is not just about the goals you score.

As for Palmer, it takes more than a good debut season before you should be called world class. What he did last season Saka has been doing for 3 or 4 seasons. Like Bellingham he needs to show consistency.

For me, Saka’s time as Arsenal and England’s “Star Boy” needs to be over. He is now England’s superstar. We no longer talk about his potential but his actually ability. I would struggle to name more than 1 or 2 right wingers who are better than him.

As I write this blog, it has begun pissing down again. Time to brew a coffee and settle in for the Grand Prix.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Keenos