Chaos outside Emirates as 2nd gear Gunners see off Wimbledon

 

Arsenal 3 AFC Wimbledon 0   
League Cup 3rd Round   
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 7.45pm    

So let’s start with the chaos outside the stadium with a midweek evening match that saw far more attendees than are normally seen at an Arsenal game on such occasions. The tickets were cheap, not many season ticket holders took up their option to buy a seat, and so we had a crowd that had a lot of people who were not that familiar with attending the stadium since increased security measures were introduced. And of course, for obvious reasons, a lot of people turn up a bit closer to kick off than they can help, and there are often streams of latecomers after the game has kicked off. 

But nothing like yesterday evening. The stands had a lot of empty seats at the start of the game, for a match which – although not sold out – wasn’t too far off being so. A lot of people arrived late. Ok. There was a lot of unfamiliarity with the new ticket readers in which you use contactless card on one (new) point and barcode e-ticket on a reader in the older reader below. Ok. There were problems on the trains to add to the cocktail. Ok, as if this should be a surprise to anyone. But the chaos was exacerbated by the madness of using too many barriers to funnel a crowd in limited concourse space – knowing that there would be a lot of late arrivals (in spite of the messaging to arrive early, because that is how it is). Now add to this the chaos of it not being clear which line was for those with bags and which for those without, and it was a highly predictable shambles on so many levels and people were outside well over half an hour after the game had begun.

Stadium manager John Beattie is a personal bête noir of mine for the gross incompetence he has displayed on so many occasions. One recent classic was his not anticipating the demand for extra use of soap when COVID first struck before lockdown in early 2020. The toilets quickly ran out, there was no thought to organize anyone to refill the soap dispensers and the idea of singing Happy Birthday to yourself (twice?) whilst ensuring you washed your hands with soap went out of the window. Just one of many examples why this individual should have been given his P45 years back. I await his autobiography – “How not to manage a football stadium”

I have no idea who came up with last night’s plan, except to say he would have signed it off. He needs to go now. In terms of how you avoid this, it is simple. You have your barriers as you did for the Chelsea and Norwich games, except you have more of them, more access points, more stewards and faster flow of traffic. It can be done, it is simple a matter of designing the barriers so that you can have more channels through which people can get through. I could draw this on a sheet of paper. You have more bag checkers and if need be more body searchers with their metal detectors. You DO NOT have barriers anywhere near the turnstiles narrowing already tight concourses so that people cannot pass a queue for one turnstile to get to another. You have a steward on every turnstile to instruct every individual which reader to use. You facilitate the movement and processing of people efficiently in limited space and limited time because you know what… for an evening game not everyone can get in 90 minutes before kick off. 

Anyway, that’s got that off my chest. I very much doubt I have won the vote to be the gold member rep at this Sunday’s first Fans’ Forum meeting of the season, but if I have that wrong, this shambles will surely be raised with a question as to how the club could not see this coming. I was very fortunate to reach my turnstile (J) and not be coming from the direction of Arsenal tube by 7.25. I joined two separate queues only to discover that one was for a bag search, one was simply long with no-one being sure who should be in it, and then finally seeing people being ushered in by a steward and realizing that was the one I needed to be in. It meant I actually saw the kick off.

Well that’s over 700 words and now to write about a football match. We’ll keep this brief. A predictable line-up of squad players who won’t be starting on Sunday with the exception of Thomas Partey. He looks so much better than Xhaka at moving the ball forward from deep, although sure as eggs are eggs, Granit will be starting alongside him on Sunday with an attendant slow down in Arsenal’s play. Lokonga and Tavares had busy matches, but the standout player in the first half was Gabriel Martinelli, who won the penalty converted by captain for the evening Lacazette in what was a largely uneventful first half. 

It was an unfamiliar lineup that played like it – with limited understanding and a lot of balls from wide that failed to find anyone. Arteta likes his teams to use width to attack, but so few crosses seem to find a teammate. In fairness to Wimbledon, although they offered very little to trouble the demoted Bernd Leno, they did defend manfully. However, can we see some practice at the old-fashioned skill of shooting on goal that does not end up being as high as rugby conversion? You always felt that the League One opposition would run out of steam in the last 20 minutes of the game, and so it proved. By that time, Smith Rowe had replaced Partey and it was he who scored after the ball had bounced around the goalmouth a fair bit to double the lead. Eddie Nketiah did score from a lovely flick after 80 minutes, but for the most part, missed his chance to impress, a familiar story. 

It was a case of job done, and onto a far more difficult last 16 tie, at home to Leeds, in which Arteta may have to play a few more first choicers if Marcelo Bielsa fields a strong team, as is likely. 

It was good that a lot of people who cannot normally attend a match at Arsenal were able to do so, although for those that were waiting for an eternity outside, I suspect they might not want to be returning too soon. I very much doubt the system used for controlling arrivals last night will ever be repeated again, and thank God for that.

Photo from @BlackScarfMarc on Twitter

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