Kevin Whitcher
So the big story was the crowd. At one point there might have been a tube strike on the Piccadilly line, but that was cancelled, leaving the club with no excuses for the fact that approximately 20,000 people who had paid for tickets decided not to bother attending a match which turned out to be far less meaningful than it should have been. It was hardly the 4,554 odd that turned up for the infamous 1966 home game against Leeds that precipitated the sacking of Billy Wright, but it was clear enough that the punters are voting with their feet, albeit too late to vote with their wallets.
For those in the cheaper seats, they had the option of moving to others with a better view, such was the quantity of empty spaces. I moved 18 rows closer to the front of the upper tier to sit with a pal who had a lower tier ticket behind the goal but wanted a better view, so moved upstairs near the halfway line and texted me to join him. There is a general feeling of apathy about the club at the moment, and I am sure that is being reflected in the sales in the club shop. The club have a lot of work to do to turn the current mood around, starting in the summer. One suspects that nothing that happens on the pitch between now and the lap of appreciation after the Villa game will change the general feeling.
Some interesting changes – although maybe up front with the visit to Sunderland at the weekend in mind. Mertesacker replaced Gabriel, Ramsey for Coquelin and Giroud for Welbeck. With West Brom in opposition, the need for Coquelin was negligible. Ramsey was presumably started to provide greater drive the the side’s attacking after the poor display against Palace last weekend.
The game was settled in the first half thanks to two very fine strikes from Alexis, who has played his way back into form. West Brom’s most dangerous chances came from set pieces and they hit the bar with one. But generally, they were uninspired, with keeper Ben Foster even seeming to waste time when his team were behind. The match had a real end of season feeling to proceedings. The visitors were on the beach, although Arsenal at least tried and busied themselves with a high pressing game.
The second half was relatively tedious. Theo Walcott entered the fray as a sub and there were a good few boos. He had a very limited amount of time to make an impact, and he made very limited impact accordingly. In a sense Walcott seems to embody the failure of Arsenal in the last ten years. A lot of promise, but limited delivery. He made his debut at the new stadium, several months after he signed in January 2006, and surely his never being brought off of the bench when the club were still at Highbury must have been due to the club needing to make additional payments to Southampton. Since then he has played a lot of games, scored a number of goals, some of them fantastic, been injured a lot and the only silverware he has enjoyed has been in the FA Cup, much of the time frustrationg the hell out of the fans by ballsing up very promising positions when in a position to do something decisive. Yup, that about sums up Arsenal 2006-2016.
The manager claimed in his post match preference not to know why so many people did not turn up to this game: “I don't know if I am intelligent enough to detect exactly why everybody that did not turn up tonight did not turn up.” Arsene, let me give you a clue. If Arsenal were still in the title race the stadium would have been packed to the rafters. You’ve blown it, again, as you have been doing for the last decade, and people have got bored of it and found better things to do with their time. Just be careful or Thursday evening football might become a little more frequent next season.
I am now on Twitter@KevinWhitcher01.
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