Yesterday the club announced some season ticket changes that will be implemented from the 2023/24 season.

As always was these sort of things, they give with one hand, take with the other. A bit like when a Government announcing a new budget. So what has been announced?

The Good

For next season, a General Admission season ticket will include all 19 Premier League and three European group-stage matches, subject to qualification. Previously, the 26-match season ticket covered all home Premier League matches, five European matches and two home Emirates FA Cup fixtures. 

Since their formation, Arsenal fans group the Black Scarf Movement have been calling for a “season ticket lite”. After over a decade of campaigning on this, the club seem to have finally agreed with them.

For as long as I can remember, an Arsenal season ticket was always your 19 league games, plus the first 7 FA Cup or European games. 26 in total.

It was why thise “cost of a season ticket” comparisons the media do yearly could be ignored. They were comparing our 26 games to another teams 19. It was like comparing apples to bananas.

Dropping from 26 to 22 games is a 15% decrease. Although the club have not yet announced how they will spread their category costing over that 22 games, so we may well not see the full 15% deducted from what we need to pay.

This will not only help fans when it comes to paying for their tickets, but will also reduce some of the clubs administrative burden.

If we played less than 7 cup games, the club had to refund fans at the end of the season; most of the time this was in the form of a reduction to the same value off their new season ticket.

Now, we will only be paying upfront for the games we are gauranteed to play (19 Premier League, 3 European group stages), and the rest will be bought as individual tickets.

There is talk that the club will allow fans to set up a direct debit, allowing them to automatically buy their seat when they come on sale. And there will also be the option to opt out of this and buy on a game by game basis – a bit like the League Cup.

Season ticket holders will hold “Priority 1” booking status meaning they will be able to book their own seat prior to tickets going on sale to Silver Members.

The other good news is the club did not decide to go down the route that Manchester United and Spurs go down.

Those clubs only have the direct debit option, and force season ticket holders to buy the additional cup tickets for every round regardless of if you can or can not go.

Finally, there will also be a hope that this will lead to less empty seats, and more tickets available for other members.

The club predict that this could “make up to 150,000 additional match tickets available for members to purchase next season“. Whilst this is a mistruth, it is still good news.

The 150,000 figure comes from the total number of season ticket holders across the 4 games. “150,000 additional match tickets available for members” would require every single season holder to not purchase a ticket for any game. The majority will.

Whilst the club will argue that “150,000 tickets are now available on sale”, it is misleading as the majority will be snapped up by those fans with season tickets. So there is not really 150k additional tickets available to all members.

Still though, I expect plenty more cup tickets to be available next season to other members beyond season ticket holders. Will be interesting to see if the club are transparent in 12 months time and let us know how many additional cup tickets were bought by non-gold members.

It will also be interesting to see if the priority for cup tickets is then linked to how many of the rounds you went to, rather than based on away credits.

The announcement of the new reduced season ticket is not the full “lite” version the BSM wanted – they wanted an “only Premier League” option. But it is a step in the right direction.

The Ugly

We will be implementing an average 5 per cent increase on General Admission season tickets for next season. Prices in the lower tier will go up by 6 per cent and 4 per cent in the upper tier.

We are in a cost of living crisis, everything is going up. Whether it is your electricity, your petrol, your food or your kebab, so it is no real surprise that the club are raising ticket prices. But that does not mean we have to like it.

Firstly, those that say “can not believe the club are rising prices during a cost of living crisis” clearly show a lack of understanding on how businesses work. Have they said similar about their favourite hotel? Their favourite car manufacturer? Their favourite takeaway?

People are very selective on what they accept going up, pay and get on with, and what they say “why is that going up during the cost of living crisis”.

All these companies would have seen their outgoings dramatically increased over the last 18 months, so prices have to go up to compensate this.

We also can not demand the club “keeps spending money” and then not accept that they might come to us to pay a little bit more to help fund it.

You have the contracts of Bukayo Saka and William Saliba to pay for. £100m on a new defensive midfielder to buy in the summer. All staff getting the London Living Wage. The club subsidising pre and post match beers.

The money for all of this increase in spending has to come from somewhere, and around £6million of it will come from us fans.

It is a bit like when people demand that the Government or Local Authority “reduce tax and increase public spending”. You can not demand your roads be as smooth as bowling greens and then complain when your Council Tax goes up to pay for it!

This news has also been misreported by the media, with many running with “Arsenal increase prices of season tickets even though fans will get to see FEWER games”. This just is not true.

What they have done is combine the two statements.

Yes, we are increasing the base cost of the season ticket, and we are reducing the games. But we are not going to be paying more overall for less games.

What the media are insinuating is that the 5% average increase goes on the end cost of the season ticket. So if you ticket is currently £1,000, it will increase to £1,050. This is not true.

The club are increasing what they charge per game which is then mutipled by the games to get the season ticket cost.

Using some crude maths, if you paid £1,000 for your ST, that was an average of £38.46 a game (£1,000/26). The average cost of a ticket is going up 5% to £40.38 a ticket. And then we get 22 games.

So now we do 22 x £40.38 which comes out to £888.46. We are “not paying more for less”, we are paying lessfor less.

The journalists that write these sort of articles know they are misrepresenting the truth. But we now live in a world where it is about hits and clicks rather than journalistic integrity. Better to get 1m hits and be wrong than 1k hits and be right.

These are the same journalists who continually put out the tripe of Arsenal being the most expensive season tickets, whilst never mentioning that we got 26 games.

Our lowest price per game will now be around the £40 mark. This is not too disimlar to what Chelsea and Tottenham pay for their cheapest normal tickets.

This year will see the second consecutive increase.

In 2022/23 we saw the first increase in 7 years. The worry is we might now see a 5% increase every single year. And that will soon get out of control.

You do also have to wonder whether the club really need that extra £6million.

We have the Adidas deal going up by £10million, we have the return of Champions League football. That is worth around £60million. And we have the increase in other commercial deals that our return as a top team will generate.

Our 2023/24 revenue could be £100m higher than 2022/23 even without that ticket price increase.

Anytime a price goes up it is hard to swallow. My kebab has gone up from £13.50 in 2020 to £19.87 last night. I struggle to get my head round it but still buy it.

The indifferent

The 25 per cent discount on season tickets and match-by-match tickets purchased outside the Family Enclosure, currently provided to Young Adult Members up to the age of 21, is being extended to the age of 24.

I am not really sure how a 24-year-old is any different to a 30-year-old?

Maybe it just shows I am getting old, but that 24-year-old could have been in full time work for 8 years. Could have been in the army for 8 years. And so on.

I do not get the “good to see we are helping Uni students” that some have put out.

If you are 24 and still at Uni in the UK, then you should have a word with yourself. If you have decided to “remain in education” rather than get into the real world and work, then you have no real right to demand a reduction in things like football tickets.

It seems odd that I am saying this as a reduction in ticket prices should be a positive. But I would prefer that reduction went to an OAP season ticket for those over 67.

You work 50 years of your life, and then retirement age comes and you are on a state pension. You can no longer afford to go down The Arsenal, which you have been doing for most of your life.

These are often the vunerable of our society. Those that 3pm on a Saturday is the most important day. And as retirement lingers, they become lonely, isolated. Football might become their only outlet. If they can no longer afford to go to games, then they ,might have very little else to live for.

I think the club should have looked to do more to help these guys, rather than the spoilt generation of 21-24 year olds who think the world owe them a living despite them not yet contributing anything. Those that still live at home rent free and will continue to do so until their 30s.

Those that have no desire to push themselves in the work place to earn more, but still demand to be paid more. Those that leave Uni having taken a pointless degree, then complain that they are being rejected for graduate jobs and having to work their way up the ladder. Those that think they should be on £50k a week in their first job with no experience.

Also, the match-by-match ticket discounts for younger fans will continue to be capped at 1,000 per match. So all all they have done is increase the demand for the same amount of tickets.

This means that those aged 18-21 now have less of a chance of getting cheaper tickets!

It does not really make sense to me.

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So we have all this news flying about over the season tickets.

You will get some online showing faux outrage, fueled by the poor media reporting. Hopefully we have explained to you exactly what has happened and given a reasonable viewpoint.

Remember you can join the discussion on our Facebook page – nearly 60k Arsenal who just enjoy talking about the club. None of that transfer speculation BS. No OTT reactions. Just common folk, many who go week in week out, having a chat.

Keenos

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Everton (0) 1 Arsenal (0) 0

Premier League

Goodison Park, Goodison Road, Liverpool L4 4EL

Saturday, 4th February 2023. Kick-off time: 12.30pm

(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Oleksandr Zinchenko; Martin Ødegaard (c), Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Kieran Tierney, Jakub Kiwior, Rob Holding, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Fabio Vieira, Matt Turner, Amario Cozier-Duberry.

Yellow Cards: Oleksandr Zinchenko

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 70%

Referee: David Coote

Assistant Referees: Lee Betts, Mark Scholes

Fourth Official: Andy Madley

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR John Brooks; AVAR Darren Cann

Attendance: 39,314

After our disappointing FA Cup match last week, it is good to be back to our bread-and-butter Premiership games again. Today we are at Goodison Park, which in recent years have been quite a tough place for us to ply our trade, despite Everton’s lowly Premiership position of late. Our new signing, Jorginho, is on the substitute’s bench today along with our other new boys Jakub Kiwior and Leandro Trossard. It should be quite a competitive match here in Liverpool this afternoon against the Toffees.

Both teams were fiercly competitive right from the kick-off; indeed it was Everton’s Vitaliy Mykolenko who committed the first foul of the day on our captain Martin Ødegaard within a couple of minutes of the start. Arsenal looked very good at this point in the match, stroking the ball around, finding their players well, with not too much interference from the home team. Gabriel Martinelli was briefly found in space on the left wing but after he knocked the ball back to Oleksandr Zinchenko, the resulting shot went straight into the arms of goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. There was a great chance for us to open the scoring when Bukayo Saka set up Thomas Partey, but he did not catch his shot properly and Jordan Pickford saved easily. Bukayo Saka got a free-kick for an accidental sharp poke to the eye from Idrissa Gueye, and after some treatment, he continued playing. However, the home side woke up and started to put us under pressure when a corner found the head of Amadou Onana but fortunately Ben White was on hand to clear the danger; the consecutive corner found James Tarkowski but his header was deflected behind for a third corner, which went nowhere, thankfully. This trio of corners saw Everton press us back into our own half, but Aaron Ramsdale was on hand when needed, to stop any chance of a goal. Just before the half hour mark, there was some great movement on our part, and eventually the ball found Eddie Nketiah, who blasted the ball up and wide with only Jordan Pickford to beat. We have to start getting a grip on this match, as the home side are exploing gaps in our midfield and on the wings, and although we play well when we possess the ball, it is when we lose it and our inability to get it back is the problem today. Five minutes before the break, Bukayo Saka met a cross from the left wing with a volley that sent the ball running to the far corner of the goal. Somehow Conor Coady was on hand to poke the ball away, and in injury time we were fortunate not to concede a goal when a Seamus Coleman cross found Dominic Calvert-Lewin whose spirited header went wide of Aaron Ramsdale’s goal. We really have to impose ourselves more on this game in the second half.

Everton started the second half proceedings in this cauldron of noise, and again the home side came straight out of the blocks at us, with Idrissa Gueye hitting a shot from the edge of the penalty area and it took a wicked deflection; Aaron Ramsdale was initially wrong-footed but readjusted himself to dive the right way and palm the ball away for an Everton corner. Wake up, chaps. Granit Xhaka was set up for a shot on the edge of the penalty area but he was met by three Everton players, who successfully blocked his shot. We started to pass the ball around, but the home side were getting their defenders in the way to stop us progressing further, which is a concern. An Everton cross to the back post was met by Oleksandr Zinchenko, who coolly chested the ball back to Aaron Ramsdale, and a few minutes later, Eddie Nketiah ran down the left wing, crossed it to Martin Ødegaard, who whacked the ball high into the stands. Just before the hour mark, Mikel Arteta made a double substitution when the new boys Jorginho and Martin Trosssard replaced Gabriel Martinelli and Thomas Partey, but then disaster struck, when James Tarkowski headed the home side ahead from close range that gave Aaron Ramsdale no chance to save his effort at all. We had a penalty appeal turned down when Gabriel was sent tumbling just inside the penalty area by a shove from Neal Maupay before he clumsily fell into Idrissa Gueye. There were some fierce tackling taking place this afternoon, none more so than by Amadou Onana, who was rightly booked for an extremely late lunge on Ben White. After a messy exchange in the Arsenal six-yard box following an Everton corner, Fabio Vieira replaced an ineffective Martin Ødegaard, and we broke out quickly deep into the Everton half. Leandro Trossard hit a superb shot from the left wing which was parried by a diving Jordan Pickford, and although we do have our moments, we do not appear to have enough in the tank to grab a vital goal, and with the home side sitting deeper and deeper as the game ebbs away, it is going to become more difficult to do anything about it. Ben White was replaced by Takehiro Tomiyasu with six minutes of the match remaining, and as hard as we are trying to score, it does not appear to be our day. In the first minute of injury time, Oleksandr Zinchenko received a ball on the edge of the penalty courtesy of a Fabio Vieira corner, but his left-footed shot went just over the bar. There was an unsavoury incident between Oleksandr Zinchenko and Neal Maupay, which resulted in both players receiving yellow cards after a minor fracas involving quite a few players from both sides; it mattered not, as referee David Coote blew the whistle to bring the game to a close a minute or two later.

We may well have had seventy per cent posession, but it just was not our day on Merseyside this afternoon. Make not mistake about it, we were poor overall at Goodison Park, and although this was only our second defeat in the Premiership this season, at this stage it is one that we could well do without, especially as Manchester City are playing Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow afternoon. Anyone can (and will) lose a match, but it will be more important to see how we bounce back from this against Brentford next Saturday, and the following Wednesday against Manchester City. It’s going to be a bumpy ride from now until the end of the season.

MATCH REPORTRemember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Brentford at the Emirates on Saturday, 11th February at 3.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon