Who remembers just a few short years ago, there was uproar at the fact that Arsenal were reporting full houses for every single game, when it was obvious that there were swathes of empty seats visible all over the Emirates.
The numbers were actually correct if they were based on paying fans, as most of the empty seats were left by season ticket holders that had mostly lost enthusiasm to watch the football on display. It got so bad that in a home game against Stoke in April 2018 it was estimated that a third of the seats were unoccupied, that means around 20,000 missing fans.
But now that it’s been a few years, it seems like the supporters are coming back in large numbers, supporting Arteta’s squad, and turning the Emirates into a fortress. This, according to Mikel Arteta, was one of his main objectives when he took the position of coach.In an interview with Sky Sports, he said, “If you had asked me what I wanted to do here, I would have said that I wanted to make the Emirates the hardest stadium in England to play at, to create a really unique atmosphere that you feel on your skin when you go there.”