Sunday, September 16th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Tony Attwood

Sitting in the Ems yesterday two things struck me from the off.   First, the number of empty seats was fewer than last season, second the noise level was up.

Empty seats is an issue at the Ems, and judging from meetings I have been at and reports that have come back from the Ems Admin, it is something that the club don’t like either.

Empty seats don’t mean unsold tickets, they mean people bought them and didn’t turn up.  Maybe the touts had them, maybe they were season ticket holders still on their summer holidays.   The number of no-shows has always been small, but now there is apparently new software in place to make it easier to sell your ticket back to the club if you can’t make it.

But it is one of those things that the AAA love to bash Arsenal supporters with.   We had a couple of comments last season along the lines of “I heard the empty seats were season ticket holders who were staying away in protest.”  As if.  No, it seems the software works now and if you have a ticket you can’t use, you can sell it back to the club much more readily.

And the noise – well of course you would expect the crowd to be noisy with a 6-1, but it isn’t always so.  This was not noise at the level of the Milan game, but it was up to a higher volume than we got for much of last season.    OK we didn’t really have 78,000 there, but as with a few games last season, it felt like the atmosphere had been lifted dramatically.

There was even a chant that made us, and Andre Santos laugh.   He came out for a run up and down the line and was greeted by:

He drives how he wants, he drives how he wants

Andre Santos, he drives how he wants.

According to the Observer newspaper yesterday Arsenal only had 50% of the possession.  I wasn’t keeping check, but that seems ludicrous to me.  I would put it more at 70%, but then I was following the game, not running a stop watch.

The paper also had the number of attempts on target at 9-3.   That certainly sounds more possible.

Here’s another odd one from that paper – the ratings (apparently sent in by readers) gave Wojciech Szczesny 4.7 out of ten.   That is bizarre – he didn’t have much to do and he mishandled one shot – so that warrants under 50%?   That’s too tough I think.

Before the game we all got a text message inviting to have a pie and a pint for a fiver.  I didn’t but still, they are at least trying to improve the ground.  There’s better signs outside too.  Not really significant in the wider scale of stuff, but still, it helps.

So we didn’t beat our 1924 record of three clean sheets at the start of a first division season.  By the fourth match that season we had scored 7 and let in 2, as we drew match number four against Newcastle.  This time we won two and drew two with 8 scored and 1 let in.  Match number five in 1924/5, rather strangely, was against Manchester City away.  We lost 0-2, having already beaten them in the second match of the season 1-0.  Our number 10 through those games was Ramsey.

Anyway, my point (such as it is) is that it felt good.  Of course it would, with a 6-1 victory, but more than that, it felt good in the ground.  It felt good to see some experimentation with the line up with a new centre forward (at times) in Gervinho.  It felt good because the crowd was good.  It felt good because it was sunny.  And mostly because we won 6-1.

And… there is one more point: Theo Walcott,  Oliver Giroud and Aaron Ramsey all had little run outs, and will be fresh and raring to go on Tuesday.  Koscielny has only had the slightest of run outs so far and so must be really ready for a game.  Diaby was on the bench but didn’t play.   These are big players, all ready to move into the affray for the Euro game.   That feels good too.

Yes, it was a good day out.

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