The Arsenal Thread XXII

This point baffles me a lot. We showed that we don't put up with nonsense, and we're one of the least deluded fanbases (if not the least). It's clear Liverpool and Arsenal fans are the worst in the country for this.

Also the fact most Utd fans chose them only because they are seen to guarantee glory and once that simple co-dependency breaks down there are the classic 7 stages of loss. A very specific type of personality chooses to become a Utd fan in my experience, and many of these guys didnt react well to a bit of turbulence.

Tbf for all the underachievement and setbacks Liverpool put their fans through, they react much much better than Utd fans.Arsenal are sort of different since most of our UK fanbase are broadly from the London area and we've never collapsed anyway.

myths

A hell of a lot of Utd fans took one terrible season embarrassingly badly

I'll go to a few games every season. The prices are a bit ridiculous at time and I think the season tickets should be a fair bit cheaper so the true hardcore fans can watch all the games, but if the stadium is full are they pricing the tickets incorrectly in the market?

Well it's easy to say you aren't deluded if you're winning back to back titles so that's not exactly something to gloat for. Besides, it's not the only factor to take into consideration.
There's also self entitlement (which you guys are notoriously known to be the worst for)and the way Moyes was treated was shocking.
Saying "you don't put up with nonsense" doesn't justify it either.




Arsenal fans have reason to want more considering we pay the most for our tickets but are provided with mediocrity yeaIt took only one year for your fans to go into meltdown however which sums it all up really. Also I wouldn't say Liverpool fans are by any means the worst. Considering their position I'd say they're more humble than rival clubs (definitely over UTD) bar for last season for obvious reasons.

Ah I don't know about that. The only reason the stadium is sold out is because we have so many fans to begin with. I mean, the average person spends anywhere between £35-£65 for a ticket (depending on opposition/competition), so it's already expensive as ****, and then when you turn up the atmosphere is piss poor because there are so many rich bastards who get given tickets, and who just sit there. The Arsenal away fans are some of the best in the country, simply because they are hardcore fans who own season tickets. The Arsenal home fans are atrocious.

On an economical viewpoint, probably not. We were heavily reliant on player sales and matchday revenue for a very long period and we have the 3rd highest matchday revenue in europe I think which helped us through. However I can't see that being much of a case anymore, especially seeing as our commercial income had increased by over £100m over 5 years and Gazidis promising to lower ticket prices if this happened (instead there was still an increase of like 3(?)% about a year ago). On a moral viewpoint it just breaks the trust between fans and the club and its not all that fair on regular match going fans being priced out of games so that the board can prioritize day-trippers, it makes us seem so corporate and disgusting imo, truly does take the heart out of it. It's even more ludicrous if you take in to account the rumours that we are still sitting atop of piles of cash.

No set of fans is OWED success, especially if said fans turn on the team the moment things go pair shaped (and yes that includes Arsenal fans)

1. Moyes wasn't treated shockingly. The only wrong thing was the banner over OT, we didn't exactly abuse him at the train station did we

2. Self-entitlement is totally justified when you win 13 titles in 23 years? (Something like that) don't think that can ever be held over us by any club.

3. Arsenal don't have more to expect as we are a bigger club with more fans, a larger income, more transfer funds etc.

4. Meltdown is thrown around too easily. Going from 1st to 7th is actually appalling, and in any case the "meltdown" has been fully justified by this season.

If you genuinely believed they'd drop the ticket prices then I feel sorry for you, football isn't a working class man's game any more to, it's about money, so much so that teams are buying players purely with the aim of boosting corporate ties and fanbase abroad.

Put simply, dropping the price of each ticket by £10 to a reasonable price would cost us 10*60000*25 (25 is roughly how many home games we play). That's £15mil, do you genuinely think the board are kind enough to not take that money when it's been proven for 10 years that fans are willing to pay that much?

Well I wouldn't expect him to go against his word and increase it when many fans can hardly afford the current prices, as I said it breaks the trust between fans and the club. Wouldn't be surprised if even our hardcore away fanbase becomes more timid because they feel they are just unimportant to the club. Whats left after that?

My point is we really dont need to price our fans out of the game anymore, we only did it when we were heavily reliant on it through a transitional period, but now we are becoming a commercial powerhouse regardless of ticket income. Why do you think it is that other teams esp. foreign ones don't mug off their fans like we do? It's because the value isn't how you just calculated it, the pricing of tickets (particularly season tickets) is a 5 minute conversation for the board but the change in price is huge for a fan as Uli Hoeness puts it. Bayern could go and charge as much as they wanted for tickets because frankly they would have a right to because of their success and brand of football, yet their most expensive season ticket is half of our cheapest. Obviously we aren't on a level with Bayern but with incoming TV money, the squad (hopefully) performing to a higher standard and better sponsorship deals there is no reason to strangle the fanbase anymore.

Of course I don't expect them to suddenly drop, but there is no need to still be increasing them. They should definitely look at other clubs models in how to minimise ticket prices while still being competitive financially, the German model especially is admirable.

myths

A hell of a lot of Utd fans took one terrible season embarrassingly badly

The sad fact is that the whole stadium is aimed largely at the rich fans, you have thousands of seats at box level and club level which are unbelievably extortionate in price and offer very little. I would love it if Arsenal committed to selling, say 10,000 tickets at reduced price per game but it simply won't happen. What a lot of people fail to realise is that whilst Bayern and Barca and the like may offer cheap tickets at like £19, they're the worst seats in the house in row ZZZZ, having been in the top row of the Emirates before I can tell you it is an unbelievably **** atmosphere, you feel closer to your home than the football pitch. Bayerns tickets in decent areas of the stadium (bar season ticket) are upwards of £100.

The system needs to change and the fans aren't even the main source of income for teams anymore, if Arsenal could commit to lowering their season ticket prices and increasing the prices of the really good halfway line seats, then they'd be able to appease the hardcore supporters whilst still bringing in the posh tourists from Asia.

Real question is, who's that standing next to him? Sad times when you don't even know players in your squad.