We should be grateful for Arsene’s magic

THERE was a risible reaction to the stadium announcer’s customary report of the attendance figure, as Saturday’s match drew to a close.

There was a time when this announcement would result in a relatively restrained round of applause, which used to tickle me for some reason. It just seemed somewhat bizarre that people should be clapping themselves, merely for bothering to turn up! Nowadays it’s become a redundant ritual, as the attendance figures appear to hover around the 60,100 mark at every match, no matter who we’re playing.

Where once this was the principal litmus test of the waxing and waning of a team’s popularity, it’s become a pointless exercise at our place because it’s not representative of the number of fans passing through the turnstiles, as it would appear that season ticket holders are included, whether they are present or not.

Never was this more obvious than on Saturday, as aside from Carling Cup outings for our reserves, I can rarely recall seeing so many empty seats at a competitive match at our new stadium.

To my mind, considering how many would give their right eye to watch this Arsenal side perform live, it’s positively criminal that we should be playing in front of anything other than full-houses.

However I guess that for many Gooners, to all intents and purposes, our season ended at Old Trafford last week.

Against Reading there was a similarly impassive feel to the proceedings, in an opening period where it couldn’t have been more obvious that this was an exercise in damage limitation for Reading, if Steve Coppell had parked the team coach in front of their goal, along with the rest of his troops.

However as the game progressed, there was almost palpable evidence of the absence of the sort of intense pressure our Young Guns have endured these past few weeks, as they relaxed and began to roll the ball about, with the carefree air of a bunch of mates having a kickabout in nearby Clissold Park.

Unfortunately (at least for all the lesser lights) there’s no disguising the huge gulf in class that exists between the two ends of the Premier League table and within half an hour we’d torn Coppell’s game-plan asunder.

Not for the first time, we failed to kill the opposition off, in a match where we were unable to take full advantage of the sort absolute dominance, which aside from a brief period in the second half, would’ve allowed Lehmann to take the day off. But then we witnessed a five-minute spell that was a metaphor for our entire season, as first Van Persie and then Walcott rattled the woodwork, with examples of the sort of breathtaking ball skills that are worth the extortionate admission price alone, but which failed to make an impression where it really counts.

It was a matter of mere millimetres that was the difference between Van Persie’s free-kick bouncing down off the cross bar and over the line, instead of on it, but I’m reluctant to board Arsène’s “fates against us” bus.

More to the point, the Dutchman’s unerring accuracy with a dead ball was a timely reminder of what might have been. If Robin had remained out of the treament room long enough to provide more than an astonishingly measly eight-goal return, we Gooners might not be spending the next month trying to avoid the back pages and coveting our rivals’ involvement in the Champions League.! Downhearted we may be, but as the Gunners do their bit in the remaining three matches to try and ensure that their summer break isn’t curtailed by those extremely inopportune Champions League qualifiers, I’ve no doubt that they will continue to demonstrate an ability to produce football of a calibre that most fans can only dream of.

No matter how bare our trophy cabinet, how can we show anything but gratitude for the sort of entertainment witnessed in Saturday’s 2-0 win?

So long as our sorcerer’s apprentices continue to sparkle in this fashion, we’ve every reason to keep the faith. Assuming Arsène learns from this season’s more obvious lessons, then Arsenal’s future remains incredibly bright.

* Bernard Azulay