Arsenal v Watford

Yeah good call.. but he's done it now.
Wellbeck on.

 

Nice to see both our new signings on the scoresheet.

 

Watford resorting to constant fouling now

 

A good day all round. Cech saving the penalty was the best thing ever, considering it led to his 200th clean sheet. He has copped a fair bit of criticism but has been a loyal servant of the club over the years. Can't fault it.

 

Yeah good result and a better performance.

Need to keep up this momentum now.

 

Just back from some lunch with the family. Missed the second half but great to see the result. Big win in the context of the atmosphere surrounding the club currently and some good stats coming out of this game:

• Arsene Wenger registered his 700th Arsenal win in his 1,222nd match in charge of the Gunners.
• Shkodran Mustafi's opening goal was Arsenal's 1,000th at home in the Premier League, making the Gunners just the second team to reach the landmark after Manchester United (1,066).
• Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil became the fastest player to reach 50 Premier League assists, doing so in just 141 games and breaking the record held by former Manchester United forward Eric Cantona (143 games).
• Petr Cech made his first Premier League penalty save since February 2011 for Chelsea against Fulham - it was also the 16th he had faced in all competitions for Arsenal and the first one he had saved for the Gunners.
• Cech registered his 200th Premier League clean sheet, the first goalkeeper to achieve this feat in the competition's history.
• Four of Mustafi's five Premier League goals have been assisted by Mesut Ozil (two from corners, two from free-kicks) - all four of the Ozil-assisted goals have been at the Emirates.
• Watford have now lost all five of their away Premier League matches in the month of March.
• Henrikh Mkhitaryan now has the same record this season in nine appearances for Arsenal in all competitions as he did in 22 games for Manchester United (two goals, five assists).

 

Did anyone think the penalty was a dive? Commentators seemed to think it was a soft one.

 

It was like the one Ospina got away with midweek. It could have gone either way. I thought it was a penalty when I saw it full speed, because I thought the Watford guy went over his leg, but when I saw it in slow motion I saw he ran into his shoulder, and I thought it was a bit soft. AM-N isn't required to jump out of his way.

 

Apparently the official attendance was 59,131.

Quite remarkable how many children The Invisible Man has managed to sire in such a short period of time.

 

It's based on tickets sold, so includes all season ticket holders. Clearly there were much fewer than that there yesterday and whilst a lunch time KO on Mothering Sunday might have accounted for some, clearly many are registering their protest by staying away. Not something I would do, as my stance is that the players need our support every week, but I can understand why some people feel the need to do it.

 

The real test for Kronke will be how many current season ticket holders don't renew for next season. Right now I doubt he could give a damn if 3 people turned up for your games, I'd imagine he's still reaping the benefits of 40k+ season tickets.

 

Also, 2nd straight penalty we saved. Surely that must be some arsenal record?!

 

So far Kroenke hasn’t given a **** what the fans think and hasn’t even bothered to turn up to AGM’s to speak to the AST. A half empty stadium doesn’t look good and is terrible for the morale of the players, but as long as Kronke has TV, sponsorship and corporate money coming in, I doubt it will hold much sway with him.

Also as you say, those season tickets are already paid for and we have something like 85,000 on the waiting list for ST’s, so there’s little motivation for him to address the issue of fans staying away.

On a slightly separate issue, there are moves to ban ST holders who regularly do not show for games. That’s largely to address the corporate holders who buy up ST’s for their clients who want to see 4 or 5 of the big games each season, but don’t bother to turn up for West Brom on a Monday night. In principle I agree with that, and I don’t like seeing regular ST holders staying away from the ground (for reasons I’ve already outlined) but I would hate to see this stick used against those who are staying away as a protest

 

It's a smart move. We've seen the real effects of corporate tomfuckery at Wembley this year. Even in relatively big games where we're going on 60-70k in attendance, there will invariably be vast swathes of empty seats in the most expensive areas behind the dugouts. They go for well over £100 a piece and you'll only see bums on them for the really, really big fixtures.

Our season ticket details for the new stadium came out today and while I haven't gone through the ins and outs a couple of the guys on our board seem really pleased with the way it is structured. Our biggest concern is that the South stand (the vast single-tier 'wall of noise' modelled after the Westfalenstadion) doesn't end up filled with the prawn cocktail brigade or the expense is a total waste.

 

Yep it's crucial that you get your single tier wall priced right for the proper fans, because you do not want that end filled up with corporates, tourists or fair weather fans who only turn up for the big games. I don't mind admitting that there's a tinge of envy about the way that Spurs have designed that stadium, as long as you get the pricing structure right, it should be an incredible atmosphere at that end.

The problem with the Emirates is that it was designed too heavily with corporate fans in mind, so that all the tiers are split up which waters down the atmosphere. Also the lack of a designated 'singing zone' does nothing for the atmosphere as it's pot luck whether you'll be sitting next to somebody who wants to cheer on the team, or a day tripper, tourist or family with young children. I've been asked to sit down, stop swearing and even to stop shouting at the Emirates before and I think we need to rethink the whole thing.

My solution would be to rip out the seats on the lower tier at each end and bring back safe standing, but I don't think that's likely to happen. Another suggestion has been to create a dedicated fan/singing zone and offer all those in that area whether they want to stay there or swap seats. Those who want to move would open up seats for those who want to move into that zone.

 

That is simple data analytics (if you wish to
be fair on it) . Those long-time ST holders
who are staying away in protest are as
easily identifiable as the corporate holders
you described.