Well last night went how most of us predicted. It was all a little Spursy.
Hopefully by the end of this week, Gareth Southgate has done the right thing and announces he is stepping down to allow someone new to take over this England time.
it is quite clear that this England team has outgrown their defensive manager. No longer should we be looking to scrape through tournaments, beating lowly ranked teams, to then go out to our only decent opponent. Southgate is unable to get the best out of the attacking riches we have available.
Let him graciously step aside. Thank him and wish him well. then we move on.
As for the game being on a Sunday night, this is a disgrace. The game so late last night ended up losing its lack of community.
Everyone had been hanging around all day waiting for kick of. By the time the game started, everyone was lethargic, kids were falling asleep, and wives were looking at their watches itching to go home. Finals should be held on a Saturday.
Apparently, it was held so late last night due to the “American and Asian market”. But this was the EUROPEAN Championships. You do not get Eurovision held late on a Sunday.
And one big reason the NFL has never really taken across around Europe is because the Super Bowl is held so late on a Sunday. No one wants to be watching a major sporting event at a time when they want to be unwinding from a weekend and preparing for a week at work.
With both the Euro’s and Copa America now over, we turn our full focus back on The Arsenal.
Our first proper friendly is in 10-days against Bournemouth on some field in America. it will be interesting to see what sort of squad we send out.
After an international tournament, we usually see players get around 3-weeks off. By the time we play Bournemouth, everyone except for our English, Spanish and French contingent would have had at least 20-days off.
Ramsdale, Raya, Saliba, Rice, and Saka are our only players who were still involved in International football beyond 6 July.
For Bournemouth, I expect the team to be all those who did not travel to Germany or America for their countries, whilst Manchester United might see cameos from some of those who were knocked out early or saw little game time.
The Liverpool match is probably the game where every bar the 6 mentioned above will see some action. That would have given most of the squad their 3 week break and a weeks training.
It will not be until the friendlies in London that we see the likes of Saka and Rice. they will be given a proper rest with Mikel Arteta knowing he has a long season ahead.
One thing that is always interesting about these pre-season tournaments is the balance between Arteta wanting to give his players a rest, and the pressure from above for him to play his best players due to the money involved. There will be a lot of unhappy Yanks who have paid a lot of money if they do not get to see Saka, Martinelli, Rice, etc.
This week I expect to see us begin confirming departures. That then frees up the squad places for us to make some signings.
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.
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?
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.
It was only a couple of years ago that Amario Cozier-Duberry was labelled “the next Saka” by some fans, and being tipped to follow Bukayo into Arsenal’s first team
Cozier-Duberry highlights just how big the jump is from youth football to senior, and whilst there was a contract on the table from Arsenal, he has decided to progress his career elsewhere.
Considered by many as the best of his generation, Cozier-Duberry’s progress has stalled over the last 12 months and has been overtaken by the likes of Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri.
His departure will lead to some fans complaining that “Arteta never gave him a chance”, but you have to remember Mikel and his team see these kids day in day out. And when you are in a title race you can not really give minutes to a kid to develop.
The situation reminds me a lot of when Henri Lansbury was cast aside.
Lansbury never really got his chance at Arsenal, despite generating a lot of hype as he came up through the youth system. Just as he got on the brink of the first team squad, and 16-year-old Jack Wilshere burst onto the scene. Suddenly there was no opportunity for Lansbury as Arsenal had a generational talent on their hands playing in the same position.
In Cozier-Duberry and Nwaneri, we have two players of similar attributes, playing at a similar level. But Nwaneri being 2-years younger is the differenc emaker when we decide which one we will focus developing.
The Cozier-Duberry departure comes on the same day a former Arsenal “wonderkid” also departs his club.
At lot was expected of Omari Hutchinson. Then 2 summers ago he decided to turn down a new contract and join Chelsea. He was apparently unhappy that we were proposing to loan him out rather than have him as part of Arteta’s first team plans.
What followed was a year of sitting in Chelsea academy, before joining Ipswich Town on loan. He basically lost a year of his career by moving to West London.
His performances with Ipswich were good enough for the Tractor Boys to spend £22m on him, but not at the level that Chelsea tried to keep him and progress him to their first team.
Everytime a good young player leaves a club, the likes of Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho are mentioned. But for every one of these that go on to be a global superstar (sort of!), there are hundreds of others that just drop down the league.
Whilst I wish Cozier-Duberry all the luck with his career, he is more likely to be playing for Bristol Rovers in 3 years than Bayern Munich.
The club have also announced that Reuell Walters is also departing.
Arsenal have an abundance of full backs, so this one came as no surprise and highlights just how far we have moved forward under Arteta.
Two seasons ago I was talking about how Walters could be a good understudy for Takehiro Tomiyasu at right back. These days Tomiyasu is our 3rd choice right back and Walters would need at least 3 players ahead of him injured to get a sniff.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 