A few months ago I couldn’t get a ticket for an away game to save my life and had to use other people’s away credits to travel to Man City amongst others. As for Liverpool away in the CL… forget it.

I did though manage to get tickets for Milan away and for Derby and Bolton - venues too expensive, crap or too badly timed for people to go to?

Having eventually managed to get five tickets for Derby by begging, stealing (not literally) and borrowing away credits etc I have now had two ‘fans’ withdraw from the Derby game because in their words ‘it would have been worth it if we had won at Man U but now…’

I now have two spare tickets and despite posting them for sale on AWIMB I have not had one reply or expression of interest: funnily enough when I was able to get tickets a month ago I was receiving unsolicited pm’s and texts from ‘fans’ desperate to go to a game.

What is the point of being a fan and expressing (on these very pages) your opinion on where the team has fallen short if you are not prepared to support the team through thick and thin? It’s no good questioning the heart of the players in the cold wet games up north and the CL group games played in Outer Serbia (or wherever; you know what I mean) if you are then going to turn tail when the going gets tough.

I notice that the Sunderland tickets are now being reduced tomorrow to 10 credits without selling out, Man City sold out on the first day which was why I had trouble getting one and this is not good enough guys.

I will not accept that the club, manager, coaches and players can be castigated by us the fans if we are not also prepared to stand up and be counted even when the result no longer matters.

We are Arsenal: set a new standard.