Quote Originally Posted by Ice Berg Kamping View Post
The problem with this is that it will take a long time, IMO, for the club to exhaust the demand to a degree that causes a change in direction. I was struck on the weekend, by how many Gooners turned out to a competition that , TBH, has become a bit meaningless, and in circumstances where there was hardly an array of new talent on show.

And the real irony is that there is still enough in this team, and its likely performances to keep the punters coming back. We are not talking about a Liverpool style implosion at AFC - just a gnawing frustration that the club is not competing as strongly as it should be able to. Its astonishing that we should be even talking about a walk out given the relative position of the club.

But we have certainly lost the lustre we had 6 years ago - and the club is making some big mistakes in managing this situation. It is of great concern that at board level there seems an inability to see how we are increasingly being perceived outside the club.
The gradual loss of gates might represent a slow puncture, but an entended stay out of the top 4 and it's attendent CL revenue is more likely to precipitate change.

The sad thing is that apparently it is money that drives change not fan disatisfaction. Any club that ignores fans, and worse, seems to focus on 'monetising' them (in other words, turning fans into money), has forgotten what it exists for.

Forbes list us a the third richest club in the world worth $1.19bn. That's a figure that factors market share price, assets, revenue, debt and whatnot. And we have got there, not through the Arsenalisation of the Emirates, but through the Monetisation of the Arsenal.

Worse still is the idea that Man Utd can be even more profitable yet not at the expense of winning.

This is the entitlement generation, people feel they are owed something, especially those of us who pay through the nose to attend matches but also those who pay nothing and are angry by proxy. Because it's a psychology thing, even if we've paid nothing physically, we've still bought in.

This perfect storm of anger is akin to the behaviour of cheated and fobbed off consumers.