Tag Archives: Manchester United

Study finds Arsenal have “cheapest tickets in Premier League”

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I hate the BBC’s Price of Football.

it does not give a fair reflection of the actual price of football, and is often used by lazy journalists to bash Arsenal for season ticket prices.

My biggest gripe is that it ignores that Arsenal fans get 26 matches for their season ticket cost, whilst every other Premier League club get just 19. That is 35% more games. It is unfair to compare them.

You would not expect Arsenal to have equal season ticket prices to Tottenham, Chelsea or Liverpool when they get 35% more games.

When you break it down per game, Arsenal cheapest season ticket is actually cheaper than those previously 2 mentioned clubs.

What is also ignored is that you can pay just £26 for tickets to Arsenal games.

A Fulham fan recently did a study on ticket prices.

They picked “behind the goal” tickets and looked into the cheapest and most expensive. A seat behind the goal for Category C games at Arsenal is the cheapest ticket in the Premier League.

At £26, Arsenal’s cheapest ticket behind the goal is half the price of one for Chelsea. It is something that the media would not talk about as it would not get the hits, clicks and advertising revenue.

I have always been a fan of the way Arsenal categorise games.

The lesser games are Cat C, providing a cheap opportunity for people to go to games. The big games are Cat A.

It suits those who are happy to go to any game just to watch The Arsenal no matter the opponent. Anyone who pays game by game for every match pays an average prices. The only fans who are “punished” are those who decide only to go to the big games – Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City.

I am always of the opinion that you can not really moan about Cat A prices if you do not want to go to Cat C games. Go to both and the prices average out. Go to just Cat A and it is clear you only have an interest in big games.

Of course, the argument is easily (and rightly) made that Cat A is too expensive.

The research by the Fulham fan shows that Arsenal’s most expensive “behind the goal” ticket is £90 – although this is upper tier. The most expensive lower tier “behind the goal” ticket is £64.

I am all for reducing ticket prices. They are across the board, not only at Arsenal or in the Premier League but down through the leagues.

For example Arsenal’s £26 is just £4 more than it would cost to pay on the gate to stand behind the goal at a Colchester United game in League Two.

My personal opinion has always been that the Cat A ticket prices subsidise Cat C, the League Cup, etc. That without Cat A, you could then not have the cheap Cat C tickets. And if someone only wants to go to Cat A games; that is their problem.

Manchester United do not have category tickets. Prices are the same no matter the opponent – £36. An Arsenal fan, on average, would pay £40 a ticket behind the goal if they went to every Premier League game. A difference of just £4.

So you could (and many do) make the argument that Arsenal should scrap category pricing and just charge a stand price for all games – in this case $30 to sit behind the goal in the lower tier.

Personally I would rather keep our system, have Cat A, B & C and offer the cheapest adult tickets behind the goal in the Premier League.

Keenos

A weekend ruined before it has even begun

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The plan for the weekend was simple. Cricket.

And then Jason Holder hit 202 not out to give the West Indies a 628 run lead in the first test against England. 2 days still to play, it will be an uphill task.

The deluded optimist in me will be saying “the Windies were 415-6 when they declared. There are still 2 days to go. England have 50-odd on the board with 10 wickets in hand. The pitch has flattened out and the Windies bowling attacking is not great”.

But we all know how it will go. England will get to 80-odd. Lose the first wicket, then a couple more. Root and Butler will put on a battling 150, giving you that bit of hope again, before England lose the final 5 wickets for about 20 runs.

The match finished in 4 days, at least those out there will get an extra day on the beach instead of being in the cricket ground.

Hopefully the second test will be better.

Last nights defeat against Manchester United was certainly deja vu.

Over the last 10 years, under Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho and more, Arsenal facing Manchester United has often followed the same script.

Arsenal dominate possession, have chances, miss chances, United score a couple on the break and win the game. And that is exactly what happened last night.

The Gunners were not poor yesterday. The statistics show we dominated the game. xG had us winning about 9-0. And that is why statistics are ultimately pointless. The only one that mattered was Manchester United scored 3 to Arsenal’s 1.

Manchester United scored 3 goals from their 4 shots on target. Not only do them seem capable over withstanding our pressure, they also have a habit of scoring goals against us without many chances.

A bit like the defeat against Chelsea earlier in the season, there are plenty of positives to take out of the game.

Despite losing our 2 central defenders, we battled well and matched a rejuvenated Manchester United.

Manchester United certainly have a feeling of the Roberto Di Matteo’s about them.

Di Matteo took over from André Villas-Boas at Chelsea. The senior players, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, John Terry, had downed tools. Made it clear they did not like the manager and got him sacked. Di Matteo came in and their form improved. It was nothing he did, it was just the players decided to start playing again.

They won the Champions League despite him.

The same is happening at Manchester United.

The likes of Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez clearly stopped playing under Jose Mourinho. They forced him out. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has not made them better players. They were already top draw players. They have just decided to start playing again.

Like Di Matteo, it would not surprise me if Solskjaer  led the team to a trophy, and even top 4. He will then get the job, the shine will rub off and he will be sacked in November. He will return to the manager that was sacked by Cardiff after 9 wins in 30 games.

You have to feel for Unai Emery at the moment. It just does not stop at the moment.

Some will say we have now lost 5 in 10, and he has to shoulder some of the blame for that, but we must stick with him.

It is not Emery’s fault that Sokratis and Laurent Koscielny suffered injuries last night. Koscielny’s was a freak accident. The pair have also had extended time off this season.

You then have Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding – both out for the season.

Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal and Saed Kolasinac have also spent time in the medical room this season, and Kostadinos Mavropanos has not been seen. Ainsley Maitland-Niles broke his leg in the first game of the season.

The only defender not to suffer an injury this season has been Carl Jenkinson.

To have so many defenders consistently out injured is just unlucky. We went into the season with 5 central defenders, and all 5 have spent time injured. You simply can not legislate for that.

So we have a race for 4th (I still think we will finish above Spurs) and the Europa League  left to look forward to this season.

Two chances to return to the Champions League, one chance to lift a trophy.

Emery will get things right, it will just take a couple more transfer windows.

Keenos

Manchester United “killed” the FA Cup, Pochettino fails again, Arsenal transfer news and Henry disappoints

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FA Cup 4th round tonight as Arsenal face Manchester United.

There is a bed sheet going round on Twitter which states “Friday night TV, 4000 stolen tickets, The FA + Arsenal killing the FA Cup”.

Whilst I understand the sentiment and frustration of the fan, it is extremely misguided.

The FA have not done much to help the FA Cup. They have sold their soul to TV companies at home and abroad meaning that we now have Friday night and Monday night games. In the 3rd round, games were moved from 3pm to lunchtime despite not being on UK TV. This was to give foreign broadcasters a wider choice on who to show.

The rest of the banner is laughable.

Let’s take the tickets firstly.

Manchester United have not given 15% allocation for years. They have hidden behind health and safety and supported by the FA, so to talk about “stolen tickets” is a joke. Maybe they should petition their own club first to give away fans the right and proper ticket allocation?

Once Man U begins doing so, they might find other clubs doing the same to them.

Also he needs to question his fellow fans.

One of the problems at the Emirates is club level and executive boxes between upper and lower tier. This means that on FA Cup games, you could have away fans above and below Arsenal fans in the middle. This would be OK if fans could behave themselves, but they can not.

There have been numerous stories over the years of fans in club level being spat on, coins being thrown and, disgustingly, cups of urine dropped from the upper tier. If you can not behave yourself, do not expect to get a full ticket allocation.

As for killing the FA Cup, let me take your mind back to 1999.

Manchester United had just won the Champions League, completing a historic treble. They were due to take part in the inaugural World Team Championship. It take place between the 4th and 15th of January, meaning that they would miss FA Cup 3rd Round day.

Mancheaster United accepted an offer from the FA to not play in the cup.

The FA wanted United to play in the new tournament in Brazil – because they believe it could aid England’s 2006 World Cup bid. England lost their bid and Man U did not even make it out of their group.

It was that day the cup died.

Both Man U and the FA decided that the competition was low priority. That teams could just “skip” it to play elsewhere. So if United fans want someone to blame for “killing the FA Cup”, by all means blame the FA, but also blame your own club.

Manchester United are more to blame for the dying FA Cup than any other side.

In other news Tottenham confirmed it would be 11 years without a trophy last night as they crashed out of the League Cup to Chelsea.

I had to laugh during the game as the caption came up on the screen when Sky showed Maurico Pochettino and Maurizio Sarri.

Pochettino’s said “252nd game in charge of Spurs” whilst Sarri’s said “Still yet to win his first major honour”. It was the same captions in the first league.

This highlights the pro-Tottenham agenda within the media.

Yes, Sarri is still looking for his first major honour, but so is Pochettino. Why is it relevant to mention it about the Chelsea manager, but not the Tottenham? It is almost like the media are trying to hide the fact the Pochettino is in his 10th season as a manager, his 5th at Spurs, and has nothing to show for it.

As for those saying “he is only 46”. Well before Unai Emery is only 47-years-old. At 46 he had already won 3 Europa League’s with Sevilla and 7 trophies with PSG in France.

It is clear who the serial winner is…

Arsenal have been lined with PSG central midfielder Christopher Nkunku.

I would normally have written this off as his agent linking his client with Arsenal to get him in the British press – with the hope of a move to a Premier League club. However the move has been confirmed by David Ornstein.

A few have said “but what abut Ainsley Maitland-Niles”., and they do have a point.

On paper Nkunku and Maitland-Niles do seem similar. Central midfielders who are versatile, and the same age. But we should not see it as Nkunku replacing Maitland-Niles, but repalcing Ramsey.

Emery clearly likes playing 3 central midfielders. As it stands we have Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka, Matteo Guendouzi, Mohamed Elneny and Maitland-Niles. We ideally need 6 if we are going to play 3, so we need to buy.

Rather than go for an ageing talent in Ever Banega, we are targeting a youngster with talent. This is the type of recruitment we need to get back to. Players under 25 who can develop, rather than on established players who command a high wage and have no sell on value.

And Nkunku would also be a replacement for Elneny.

We get Nkunku, we then have 4 central midfielders who are 22 or under – with Xhaka the elder statesman at just 26. It would then be an area of the park that we would not have to invest in for a couple of years.

Finally sad news from France.

Thierry Henry has been sacked by Monaco.

It does not come as much of a surprise. Monaco was a sinking ship having got into bed again with Jorge Mendes. They moved away from what had won them the league – signing and developing bright young talent – and returned to signing ageing has-beens.

It was a tough job for Henry to take. One that he was always likely to struggle at. He has not helped himself with some of his comments, however you can see his frustration with some of the overpaid senior players.

Some people are saying “thank god we didn’t employ Henry” but to judge him on his first job would not make sense.

Henry clearly loves the game, and has a lot to give. Monaco was just the wrong job.

He could do with going to a club filled with young talent, where he can develop that talent – both the bodies and mind. A bit like what Frank Lampard is doing at Derby. I hope he gets another chance.

Keenos