The Arsenal Stadium mystery

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
09 Jan	8:00 PM	LC	Tottenham Hotspur (H)	1	1	Draw

This week yet more Spanish media reports suggest Barcelona feel they paid far too much for a certain Thierry Henry. Meanwhile the player himself has stated he would like to come back to the club in some capacity one day - maybe we can fit him into one of the Legends Tour slots, eh?

Anyway, what with us being second in the league, and facing a really easy draw in the Champions League, now seems like a good time to remind you all that the last time I wrote, I suggested he'd miss us more than we ... oh, you get the drift.

Since that article, written in the summer, Freddie Ljungberg returned as part of a West Ham side sent out to gain a point on New Year's Day. The predatory instincts of Eduardo - of whom, more in a minute - put paid to that plan well, within a minute! Like the West Ham side that day, Freddie did very little before being substituted in the first half. In fact, when he raised his arms in acknowledgement of the standing ovation (and yes, even I clapped) he was afforded, that looked like the most effort he put in all day! I'm being slightly harsh, of course.

So before I talk about another injury-prone footballer, what about Eduardo? The man has scored some crucial goals in the last few weeks, two beautifully taken goals at Goodison Park to turn around what was proving a very tough assignment - and oh, the irony of David Moyes whining about our long-ball football and our play acting!

As I mentioned, that opener against West Ham, and another opener, a goal he made look stupidly easy against Burnley. Did he hypnotise Gabor Kiraly like a snake charmer as he ran in on goal? The way he put that away, it looked like the kind of goal you'd score in the park playing three and in with your mates. So, he's the good news this month, and it's needed in the continued absence of Robin van Persie.

It's a shame that such a magnificent footballer seems to have broken a few mirrors in his time, either that or is actually made of glass himself. This season, early on, promised to be a devastating one for Robin, and I guess it has been. Just not in the way we all hoped. I feel for him, and wish him a speedy recovery. We'd all be much happier with the Perse playing a prominent role in our season. It is a tribute to the team and the team building skills of our manager that we haven't missed him too much.

Of course, Robin did manage one-half of this week's semi-final against the N17 bottlers (again they had us by the short and curlies, yet again they couldn't finish the job properly).

We began well in that game, but faded quite badly I thought. Perhaps the boys were not helped by the renewed steel of the visitors, or the worst atmosphere I've experienced in the Carling Cup since a half-empty Highbury witnessed Robért Píres' first goal since returning from injury in a 3-2 defeat against Sunderland in 2002.

Why was it so? This season has already seen a full house (albeit with one or two or three people arriving half an hour late due to misplacing tickets) witness a minor demolition job on Newcastle United.

Whilst this time last year a pretty much capacity crowd witnessed the second leg of another semi-final against the N17 bottlers. By the way, even if they do beat us in 10 days time, they'll still be bottlers to this writer. I digress.

It has been suggested that we have bigger fish to fry than Spurs at the moment, and certainly with people counting the pennies left after Christmas, the pounds needed for tickets to the Milan matches and us going great guns in the league, we can see that perhaps this fixture doesn't hold the attraction that it did last year.

Yet another reason may be the club's recent Carling Cup pricing policy. Since Wenger began to use this competition as a means to blooding youngsters with limited first team experience, and the board got sick - I assume - of seeing a half-empty Highbury, a fews things have happened.

One is that the club have continually knocked down prices for these games, the second is that the RedAction boys seized these games as opportunities to have a bit of a party at a football match.

Finally, these games have tended to go to General Sale, thus resulting in a genuinely exciting opportunity to watch the Wengerboys for those who don't generally get the chance because they can't get a ticket for whatever reason.

Now, some of you may remember that last year, there was a bit of a rumble reported in the press between Arsenal and the money-grabbing bottlers from N17 as a result of this policy. The money-grabbers were aggrieved that they wouldn't be getting gate receipts from a full-priced match.

Arsenal (for once the good guys as far as ticket prices go) didn't want to charge full prices and therefore go back on a long-instituted policy. I guess the ticket prices last year, though I can't be sure, were a compromise.

So this year, and I am not for one minute suggesting that Arsenal were unhappy to do so, we ended up with a semi-final containing a team full of reserves and a crowd paying first team prices, but the tickets not being put on General Sale, because it was our neighbours visiting. Two weeks after Christmas. Result?

Seven thousand empty seats. And Spurs fans left feeling as though we didn't matter to them very much anymore. Which was a shame. But at least it allowed me and Gabs the opportunity to dance across the length of row 30 in block 111 as Theo Walcott fortuitously grabbed an undeserved equaliser.

You'll never beat the Arsenal!

User Comments

Chauvin

Posted on 15 Jan, 2008 at 10:45 PM - Reply

finally an article on this topic! why should spurs be allowed to dictate our ticket prices? if you work out the average ticket pricing for the game they only made an extra £190000 if the average ticket price was allowed to drop from its normal £42 to £30 and then halved and subtracting the 7000 not there... that just about covers a couple of their players wages and now it looks as if our neighbours dnt matter to us anymore which i agree is a shame because of the great rivalry we used to have. but why should we pay £42+ for a 1st leg carling cup match against a spurs side who havent beaten us at home in 15 years up against our youth academy?

Paul Williams

Posted on 15 Jan, 2008 at 02:09 PM - Reply

The headline was nothing to do with Thierry Henry and everything to do with 7000 empty seats at the Carling Cup semi last week. Amongst other things. Thanks for your comment though.

Malone

Posted on 15 Jan, 2008 at 12:25 PM - Reply

Easy champions league draw? I think thats a tad optimistic.

Maya? The invisible team. I think you mean Invincible.

Paul

Posted on 15 Jan, 2008 at 10:55 AM - Reply

Just dont see it! Good article by the way - much better atmosphere Saturday against Birmingham.

NIck

Posted on 15 Jan, 2008 at 12:09 AM - Reply

Why the headline of Henry when the whole article is about ticket prices?

Loyan Abdulle

Posted on 14 Jan, 2008 at 01:58 PM - Reply

Nice article mate.

Completely agree about the general sale point. Two days before the game kicked off I decided to get tickets (as I wasn't sure whether we were home first or not) but after being informed by the box office and logging on with my username and password I could see no signs of any tickets as no tickets were were apparently available. U thought it was a mistake at first so I go back to where it said tickets available and to my surprise it said that although tickets were available, they would not be going on general sale for this game. Bullshit I say.

Anyways nice one for the article man.

maya

Posted on 14 Jan, 2008 at 01:40 PM - Reply

I say we only miss Robert Pires (and probably Sol Campbell?) out of the invisible team.

vivb

Posted on 14 Jan, 2008 at 12:57 PM - Reply

The primary driver for the club was to minimise the vandalism suffered at the hands of the Spurs fans hence the clubs agreed lower away fan allocations but the higher match fees.

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