Tag Archives: She Wore

The rarely mentioned Price of Football – Being an away fan

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By now I am sure you would have all read the yearly BBC investigation or the Price of Football. I am also sure you would have read plenty of commentary on the matter from fellow bloggers. Most of the discussion has now been done to death, with the main topic’s revolving around how expensive football now is and how once again, the media highlight Arsenal as the worst of the worst, despite us getting 26 games from our Season Ticket.

There is a group of fans who never seem to get though about when the Price of Football comes out. And that is the away fans. The topics covered include ticket prices, and prices of pies, a cup of tea, a programme and an adult shirt. It is very much home orientated.

What is forgotten about is the most loyal fans in the country. The away fans. The fans who get to Euston at 6am to get to Wigan for a 12.45 kick off. The fans who are unable to get back to Newcastle due to Sky moving London away game to a Monday night. The fans who spend hours working out how to get to a game due to trains being suspended due to engineering works. These are your most loyal, and most neglected, fans.

As a member of the away ticket scheme, I travel up and down the country watching the Arsenal. There are 2 things that frustrate every Arsenal travelling fan – and I am sure every fan of every club:

1) Category A games
2) Trains

Firstly let me approach the latter briefly. The cost of trains. Any commuter will agree, our train system costs too much. But where football fans are hit is due to the inability to take advantage of tickets when they 1st come on sale. the ‘advance’ tickets.

In theory, it should be easy. The fixtures list comes out in June. Train companies sell tickets 12 weeks in advance. Travelling fans should be able to take advantage. But no. Due to the TV companies only deciding what games they are going to show over a 1-2 month period, it means that fans often miss out on the cheapest tickets.

Next week, it will be 12 weeks until Manchester City away, I should be able to buy my train tickets early, benefiting from the reductions. An early bird cost would be around £25 return.

TV companies tend to release what games they are set to show around 6 weeks in advance of the beginning of that period. If I were to book train tickets to Manchester for 6 weeks from this weekend, the cost would be £66. So football fans get stun by an additional £40+ due to TV companies.

Add in late changes of games (Hull away), games being moved to late afternoon/evening, resulting in fans not being able to get a train home (Everton away) and games being moved to a Sunday when National Rail have already announced there will be no trains due to engineering work (Leicester), organising away travel is the bane of away fans. But it is the increased cost caused by TV companies that is often most frustrating. (Sorry, it became a lot less brief then it was supposed to).

Every club (bar Manchester United) implements a pricing category. Some just do A & B. Some go all the way to D. The justification is supply and demand. That more people will turn up to watch Hull v Manchester Uinted than they would Hull v Southampton.

The problem is, the same clubs are always a Cat A. Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and more recently Manchester City. Whilst a home fan often does not mind paying a little extra – the increased cost to watch their side play Liverpool is offset against the lower cost to watch their side play Burnley – the fans of the Cat A sides are punished every where they go for supporting a bigger, more popular, more successful, club.

I spent a little time investigating the difference between being a Category A club, and being in the lowest category as an away fan (I have used Arsenal and Leicester as the two clubs):Cost For Away FansI expected the results to show a gap between the costs of the two sides, but I did not expect it to be so vast. A difference of over £200 between the two sets of travelling fans is astronomical. Disgraceful. Embarrassing.

The most a Cat A game fan has to play is at Arsenal – £62. The most for the low Category Sides is £47, away to Chelsea. A Cat A’s cheapest trip this season will be to Hull City, whilst a lower Cat side’s cheapest is to Leicester.

Some of the differences are shocking. Three of the sides (West Ham, Leicester, Arsenal) charge over 100% more to some teams than other sides.

For a long time, I have been a supporter of the FSF’s Twenty’s Plenty campaign, where sides agree to only charge away fans £20. It would cost the clubs very little in income, but would save the fan of a Cat A club £464.

By the time you add in transportation costs, you are looking at on average spending £100 a game following a Cat A club up and down the country. That is £1900 for anyone who, like me, does every game. Add in drink, food, and other expenses, the average away fan will spend around £3000 a season. I wonder sometimes how I can justify that expenditure.

How clubs continually get away with charging different sides different amounts I do not know. All the fuss is always over home fans. Their season ticket cost. Their Price of Football. But the away fans are always forgotten about. And the away fans of a top club are victimised. Arsenal being amongst the worst to punish other top sides.

£200, that is the difference in being an away fan of certain clubs. It is a shocking Price of Football that is rarely mentioned, but hits the loyal fans more than anyone else. It’s a disgrace.

KeenosAFC

Further information:

  • All prices were taken from Football Fan Guide
  • Where clubs offer away fans adults, seniors, juniors and concessions, all prices are adults
  • Where clubs offer lower and upper tier at different costs, the same banding has been taken for both
  • If you paid a little more a little less than the above quoted, please don’t whinge, bitch and moan, do your own research, write your own blog

Arsenal’s Injury Crisis – A Simple Solution

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Some players are just more injury prone than others. That’s a fact. No matter how much you think there injury record will improve, it never will. From Darren Anderton and Jamie Redknapp in the 90s to Michael Owen in the 00s, some players always struggle to stay fit.

The key is to not have too many of these said players in your squad.

One of the major contributors to Arsenal endless injury crisis is we carry too many players with poor injury records;

Abou Diaby
Tomas Rosicky
Yaya Sanogo
Kieran Gibbs
Jack Wilshere
Theo Walcott
Mikel Arteta
Aaron Ramsey

8 players in our current squad who, over the last 5 seasons, have missed a lot of games, and will continue to do so. I would bet that over the last 18 months, at least half of that list has been injured continually throughout.

Every side suffers injuries. According to the physio room, each Premier League side currently has out, on average, 5 players. Manchester United have the most, at 9, Tottenham the least, at 2. Injuries are an unavoidable part of football.

Arsenal’s problem is that as we carry so many injury prone players, whenever a ‘normal’ player picks up an injury, his loss is exaggerated.

Look at the players involved in out current injury crisis;

Abou Diaby
Yaya Sanogo
Mesut Ozil
Theo Walcott
Serge Gnabry
Mikel Arteta
Mattheiu Debuchy
Olivier Giroud

The list can easily be split into two. Mesut Ozil, Mattheiu Debuchy and Olivieir Giroud have very good injury records. The rest have extremely poor records.

You can not legislate for Giroud injury his ankle blocking a clearance, or Debuchy being crocked in a horrendous challenge, or even the odd knee or hamstring here and there.

But what you can do is ensure that you limit the effect by having a very fit squad. Unfortunately Arsenal do not have that.

By the time we pick up our 2/3 ‘normal’ injuries that every club suffers, we already have 4/5 long term injuries to our injury prone players. This then puts us in an injury crisis.

At Arsenal, over the last 4/5 years, we have always had 4/5 long term injuries, the same handful of players going in and out the treatment room. This then makes it seem like our injury crisis is never ending, as a combination of the above players will always be out.

So how do we solve our current ongoing injury crisis? It is not by changing the training ground, or the medical staff, its by changing the playing staff.

First out of the door should be Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby and Yaya Sanogo. These three have been forever injured. They have missed more games than they have played. The ironic thing is that by selling them, it will actually make no difference on the 1st team squad, as neither will be missed. But what it will do is create a bit of a mental change. It would immediately reduce our ‘injury list’ by 3.

The others create a controversial debate:

Jack Wilshere or Aaron Ramsey

It seems one of either Jack Wilshere or Aaron Ramsey is always injured. In the 90s, we mocked Spurs & Liverpool fans for putting Redknapp and Anderton on such a pedastool, yet both were always injured. No point being a brilliant player if you are injured. Wilshere & Ramsey for Arsenal are quickly falling down a similar slide.

Both are talented, but both miss a lot of games. The harsh side of me says ‘get rid of both, we have the money to buy equally as talented, but less injury prone players’. The more moderate side of me thinks we should dump one of them.

As previously said, you can afford to carry one or two injury prone players. At the moment, Arsenal are trying to carry 2 in the same position. Jack Wilshere’s injury record concerns me more than Aaron Ramsey’s. He has not played over 30 league games since his break through season – 2010/11. Is it time we were ruthless and cut our losses with him? Buy someone better and less injury prone? Think with your head, not your heart

Kieran Gibbs

Kieran Gibbs is now 25. When he is on the pitch, he is a great full back. In my opinion, he is England’s best. His record is worse than Wilshere’s, in the fact he has never played more than 30 league games. He really is made of glass.

He is another one who I always think should we cash in on. He can not even be trusted to remain as second choice left back, as chances are high that if the 1st choice left back was injured, he would be too.

It is another head over heart decision. If Kieran Gibbs can not play over 30 league games, should he be at Arsenal?

Theo Walcott

In his younger days, Theo Walcott had a lot of injuries. Many of these were associated with weak shoulders, which he has since had pinned in. His latest injury is a tad abnormal. I put it down to one of the ‘normal injuries’ that every side suffers during the course of a season.

The question over Walcott is how does he return from his injury. He has already had a few set backs, and a player who relied so much on pace, would he have lost a yard having been out for nearly a year?

If it is clear he has lost something, or he does continue to break down, we should flog him quickly. Cash in whilst his stock is high, and move on. Let’s not carry him. Let’s not hope that one day it will improve. It rarely does.

So who would I ship out:

Definitely out

Abou Diaby
Yaya Sanogo
Tomas Rosicky

On a last chance

Kieran Gibbs
Jack Wilshere or Aaron Ramsey

Give him time

Theo Walcott

Arsenal carrying injury prone players is not a new things. Samir Nasri, Robin van Persie and Thomas Vermalaen all had poor records before we signed them, yet we still signed them. Decisions like this just opens us up to entering an injury crisis.

To solve our injury woe’s, we do not need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to ensure that we have a squad full of players with good injury records. Stop buying players with poor records. Ship out the players with poor records.

It really is that simple.

Keenos

 

Three key questions Arsene Wenger must answer

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After the weekend defeat, there is a lot of anger swilling around Arsenal again, and I can fully understand why.

We came up short against a top side once more. Chelsea played poor, we played poorer. They beat us comfortably once more without having to get into top gear.

This season, we have played Spurs and Manchester City at home, and chelsea away, gaining a total 2 points from 9. This despite being up against a very poor Spurs side (who we now sit behind in the league) and a Manchester City side who were without Yaya Toure.

Yes, it would have been a tad unreasonable to expect 6 points from those games, but to come away with just 2 is under whelming. To win the league, you need to beat those around you at home.

And that is where we have let ourselves down over the last few years. Results against the top sides. It is a well written narative, but the results are shocking:

  • Arsenal are now 14 Premier League games without a win against the previous seasons top 4
  • In the last 10 years, Arsenal have faced top 4 sides 62 times. W 15 D 19 L 28
  • The last time Arsenal beat a top 4 side was 2011/12
  • From 12 meetings with Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal has lost 7, drawn 5, and won 0
  • Arsenal have not scored in 4 games against Chelsea
  • Since winning 5-3 at Stamford Bridge in 2011, Arsenal have scored just 2 goals in 7 games against Chelsea, Chelsea have scored 14
  • In the last 12 games between Arsenal and Chelsea, Arsenal have scored in just 4 of them, Chelsea in 10
  • Over those 12 games, the aggregate score is Chelsea 25 – 6 Arsenal

It is clearly not good enough. How do we expect to finish above our rivals, if we can not beat them. We do not even get close to beating them.

It is a worry for all fans. I look at travelling to Manchester, to Liverpool, to West London through the eyes of a small side these days. Knowing that you are going there and unlikely to get a win. We are Arsenal, we should be looking at going to these places and winning.

Arsene Wenger has often got his tactics wrong in these bigger games. Enough has been written about it by many, so I will not cover old ground. But no matter the tactics, it still comes down to the 11 on the field. And the 11 we put out more often than not are inferior to our opponents.

Looking at the sides Sunday, if you made a ‘combined 11’ it would line up:

Courtouis
Ivanovic Cahill Terry Gibbs
Matic
Cesc Oscar
Hazard Costa Sanchez

In that brings me to the key point. Why did we not spend to the best of our abilities in the summer. With upwards of £60m in the bank unspent, Arsene Wenger has a duty to the fans to answer 3 questions:

1) Why did we not purchase a defensive midfielder in the summer?

2) Why did we let Thomas Vermaelen leave and not buy a replacement?

3) Why did we wait until deadline day to buy a striker, despite pursuing one all last summer?

Whilst we are not short of numbers, we are short of quality numbers. Would Cesc Fabregas have improved us? Yes. Would William Carvlaho have improves us? Yes. Would Loic Remy have improved us? Yes. Would any of the hundreds of centre backs who moved in the summer have improved us? Yes.

The problem also comes down to the loyalty of both Arsene Wenger and us, the fans, to the players. We have a tendency to put our players on too high a pedastool.

When we decided not to buy Fabregas, the narrative was that we had Ozil. But the fact is Cesc is better than both Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey.

Over the summer, we were looking for a third choice centre back. Yet last year we conceded 41 goals. Do we over hype Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny too much? One is slow, which often puts us in trouble with balls in behind, the other gives away a lot of penalties. Should we not have been looking to buy better than these?

Even in a position such as left back. I love Kieran Gibbs, and were he to stay fit, he would be one of the best in the world. He is now 25 and is still suffering with injuries. Whilst our heart says keep him, our head’s say we should cash in on an injury prone player.

The same with Jack Wilshere. A brilliant talent, but we are starting to sound like Spurs & Liverpool fans in the 90s with Darren Anderton and Jamie Redknapp. Yes, its great they are extremely talented individuals, but you can not affect a game if you are in the medical room more than you are on the football pitch.

We have the money to make big changes in the squad. Out need to go the players not good enough, the players who are always injured, in need to come better, fitter players.

The question is, does Arsene Wenger have the desire to spend? Is he too loyal to too many of our players? Can he answer the 3 key questions from the summer?

Keenos