Not sure about why Rosicky has yet to play a game. I would say he was one of our top three performers last season. I really rate him as a player and think he can build on his previous successful year.
To many in North America that's comparable or less than average ticket prices for tier 1 sports (not that I agree with it though). In my job I'm responsible for our company's subscription to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and Toronto Blue Jays. It kills me to sign off to release the funds for such dire teams.
irrelevant since arsenal aren't in n.america, nor are they aiming to sell away tickets to n.american fans.
Actually, I would argue that it is relevant. Much of the current pricing is attributable to casual fans and tourists who would never agree to pay that much on a weekly basis but are willing to pay it due to the "special occassion" nature of their attendance. The treatment that away fans are seeing is not dissimilar to what I would say the clubs would like to do to home fans but with a focus on the tourist "package" type rather than the guy who can walk to the stadium from his nearby home. In the States, the NFL only has 8 home games so the league charges a ridiculous amount and they cater to the people who make a full day of it. Baseball is more local and there are ten times as many games so prices are kept reasonable to encourage higher and more local attendence. Whether away fans or Arsenal supporters from the States, upcharging a group making a special trip will, unfortunately trickle down to the local season ticket holders. That is why I would argue it has some relevance.
it's not. these are tickets for AWAY fans for a cat A match, and if that's as easy as their next away game against qpr (unlikely), that means around 8/9 different "points" categories of regular man city fans get to buy these before any tourist/1 time attendee does. general sale by man city was the second last option. they still weren't taken up. the last option is now, where arsenal desperately try to flog them off. how many tourists 2 weeks into dreary january did arsenal think there were who could actually get to buy a ticket in the man city section? this has nothing to do with considering tourists (who shouldn't be considered anyway imo) and more to do with greed, again, on our club's part. let's be honest, they're just greedy, greedy bast**ds, plain and simple. they'll bleed that stone until it's drier than the sahara.
It's totally relevant. It's clear that Arsenal charge what the market will bear (as do NA teams). Any team (i.e. a business) that charges less than it can is selling themselves short. When people stop going to games the price will drop (and not before).
firstly, away man city fans are not casual fans. secondly, they sent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds back. they are overpriced because our club have to try and rip the arse out of everything it does.
My point was that it is relevant because of how it reveals the same ethos against which you are railing. Not saying that these tickets were being sold to tourists but that tourists, like away fans are seen as sheep to be shorn and that the concern is that the mentality eventually also is applied to local/season ticket fans. But, it isn't just us, right? I see that Utd is charging twice as much for the FA Cup at their place as was charged for the first leg. Not saying it is right but pointing out how pervasive it has become. On a biased note, though, I do feel inclined to say that if City can afford to buy a title they can buy these tickets too.
I paid 50 for the away at Spurs seven years ago and would have gladly paid the extra 12 for a seat in a shiny new stadium that didn't stink of old urine (as did White Hart Lane).
this same match 4 seasons ago cost £32.50, so that's a 91% increase to £62 and represents nothing but pure greed.
"this" meaning the one on sunday? well, obviously not since hundreds and hundreds of tickets were returned. "this" meaning the one 4 seasons ago? attendance 60,097
Greed? In football? No! According to the Guardian, the tickets for the Stoke visit are 35.50 so, this is the exception and not the rule. The reason this fixture is being gouged is that they are the champions. Just as United tickets cost more, City is now a premium match. Four years ago they were a middling club so - cheaper ticket. City fans are throwing a fit because they got a billion pound team with some of the cheapest tickets in the league so this would be a shock. Sorry, we don't all have a sugar daddy buying us whatever we want with no financial implications. I get that fans want cheaper prices but the group from whom I don't want to hear that crying is City fans. They and Chelsea are living in a fantasy world where their books are fairy tales. To keep up with their idiotic spending, other clubs will have to raise rates. So, our fans can complain about our tickets, Stoke fans can complain about our tickets, even Sputz fans can complain about our tickets but I don't have any patience for it from a bunch of people whose club is doing all it can to contribute to this arms race. No problem with your anger at ticket prices, just not caring that City fans don't like it.
I agree but we aren't the ones returning our tickets and currently bleating on about it. Arsenal fans have every right to complain about high ticket prices especially with less than Arsenal-like results on the pitch. No disagreement there. I just feel like right now we are being called "slutty" by Paris Hilton and think maybe there should be some introspection on their part.
And another thing... Why is City charging its fans 30 pound for a team coach??? If they are so concerned with affordability and they are pissing money left and right on players, why aren't they making travel free for their poor hard scrabble supporters? City are now apparently interested in Cavani. A player with a quoted price as high as 50 million. Let's say City buy him for the last amount Napoli rejected at about 45 million pounds. For that amount they could buy their fans 1,500,000 coach trips to London. Given a match allotment of 3000 tickets, they could pay for every coach trip for every away City away fan for the next 500 trips to the Grove. If they want to get the hump, get it about the coaches that your multi-billionaire owner makes you pay for. We have bills to pay.
Sorry, just annoyed with the messenger (City fans). How about this? We create a sliding scale for away tickets. Each away ticket will be .00003% of your team's NET transfer spending over the last five years. Stoke's net spending was 75,175,000 so each of their tickets is 25.15. City would pay 122.15 per ticket on their 407,150,000. Each Arsenal ticket "buyer" would get paid 13.5 for each match we attend on our net spending of a negative 45,000,000. That is why Arsenal fans have every right to be pissed about our tickets and many other facets of our management and I don't have any time for City's complaints. (All data from www.transferleague.co.uk. I know you may not agree with all of the pieces of data but the general data impact is spot on.)
you're blaming/punishing man city fans for their club's spending deaner? that's about as wide of the mark as blaming arsenal fans for our club's greed. a fan is a fan, who they support doesn't really matter in this instance. you realise their price is the same as for our fans, and the eventual outcome is tit-for-tat by clubs which only means both sets of fans suffer, not that either club cares much for either set of fans if they think they can drain them for every last penny in their pockets. of course, if arsenal do this for every cat A club, and every other cat A club ups their price for arsenal, that means all away arsenal fans end up paying even more to watch the club, even more than the already most expensive season tickets in the world (and without success i might add). do arsenal fc care? do they f**k. the man city match isn't "an exception". it's part of 5 matches classed as category A, meaning some poor mugs get to be ripped off. there are 8 cat B matches and 6 cat C matches. fans have no say in this, just as they have no say in pricing. for this they have to rely on the reasonability of the club. our club is not reasonable where ticket prices are concerned, and haven't been for a long long time.
If i was going to see Arsenal play at Eastlands, getting to sit in the away section... i gladly pay £62. It's not that rediculous...
Indeed- if it was 62 bones for some league 3 team who caught Arsenal in a late round of the league/FA cup, then you might feel bad. With City, you pretty much want them to ask their boycotting fans to follow the Sheikh around for 10 minutes, as I'm sure in that time a few thousand quid would fall out of his pockets which is enough to finance the ticket.
would this be from your median islington take home salary of around £21k pa, where the median price for a 2 bedroom house on the market is £600,000+. i'm sure you'd be ecstatic.
Could someone explain to me why we give a feck what it costs a city fan to come to our patch? They want to be considered a big club, well with that comes big club prices. Honestly though, we are fussing about 60,000 pounds...nothing in the scheme of things. All those millions spent will get city their fair share of plastics and profit driven clubs like us are sure to try and take advantage of them. I mean we surely must charge a convenience charge to all united's plastics so they don't have to drive all the way from london to Manchester to watch a match.