I was too focused yesterday on what I wanted from the international break from an Arsenal perspective, that I didn’t even talk about the stadium expansion that’s been talked about for the last couple days, so as I try desperately to fill my thoughts and this blog on Arsenal stuff so I can avoid talking about internationals for as long as possible – why don’t I start out with talking about that for a bit?

You’ve probably already read some of the articles and so you’ll be aware that the talk is about finding an additional 10,000 seats that will bring our capacity up to 70,000. It first broke by The Telegraph I believe and fair play to Sam Dean, who has also done a few spin off pieces on his exclusive, as he and the Telegraph eek out as much of their ‘scoop’ as possible (I might sound a little sarcastic there, but I actually think they did a good job on this one).

It’s an interesting one, this, because if you think about the current complaints that are circling the ether right now about how hard it is to get tickets, it makes sense that layering in another 10,000 tickets each week would help the burden. I do think that if they do this, however, they can’t be upping the amount of season tickets. The current problem is that fans get nowhere (or that’s the perception) in the current ballot process, so opening up to members who don’t go very often is the right thing to do, in my opinion. And I’m speaking as somebody from a position of privilege; I have a season ticket, have done for years, so whilst I love the idea of The Management getting fast tracked on her season ticket with these additional seats, I think the problem lies in the ballot and access to Red/Silver members.

Apparently the way in which the club can do this is through deeper seating, or by adding an extra layer of seats to get us closer to the pitch. I like how Andrew Allen at Arseblog has referenced what Benfica have done to add 5,000 seats to their stadium in the examples they’ve given here. In the Telegraph they talk about those steeper seats like the – ahem – Tottenham Hotspur stadium, but whatever they do, it would mean a temporary move to another stadium and Wembley has been mooted as an option. I’ve seen plenty of fans talk about how they’d hate it, but for that season we’d be talking 90,000 fans in the ground, plus it’d make my commute a hell of a lot easier from Uxbridge!

Whatever is decided, I doubt anything will happen within the next few seasons, as there will be consultations and more. But what I find interesting about that is that whatever Arsenal team step out on to the pitch when these changes finally happen (in whatever form), the team that does play at Wembley (if that is the case) will probably be totally different from this one. If I was to hazard an uneducated guess, I’d think this is a solid five year’s down the road from now, which means it’s probably only Max Dowman, Bukayo Saka, Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri who might be sure-fire bets to be part of the change. Heck, Mikel Arteta might not even be there.

Which then makes you think about the football team as well. The clamour for tickets right now is because the team is looking amazing. But what happens when this current ‘Project’ has run it’s course? One of the hardest things to do in football is renewal. Wenger joined in 96 and inherited a superb back line. He sprinkled his magic and built on that foundation to forge a title winning side in 98. That evolved in 2002 and was completely changed into his image by 2004, which was his pinnacle. But by 2008 the team had gone again and we spent a number of years away from the top table, scrabbling around for Champions League Top Four. I’m not going to dredge up old stories and turn this into a history lesson, but there’s an argument to be had that Wenger never really managed to really renew his team effectively (we can all find reasons why that is that I won’t go over today).

We don’t know what this Arsenal team will look like in five years time and we don’t know whether we will be back to being a team fighting for top four, or worse, but I do still think the need is there to increase the stadium. The demand is there now, I just hope that if we fall away a bit, the demand will still be there. The waiting list suggests so, but I’ve got pictures of me turning up to a midweek game at The Emirates in the middle of winter against Man City, being able to lie flat across four seats because there was hardly anyone else around me. I will be there – god/higher power permitting – for as long as possible regardless of how the team are performing. I just hope that those who are infrequent visitors and are currently clamouring for tickets now, will also be there with me. As I say, the waiting list and the demand for tickets suggests we should be ok, so the club clearly feel there’s an opportunity there.

Whether that translates to loads more cash to the club remains to be seen. As the Telegraph article points out, Arsenal made a gamble on match day revenue at a time in which commercial and sponsorship deals sky-rocketed, making the percentage of revenue from match days a little less relevant, but if you’re charging an extra 10,000 people £40 on average, that’s £400k on ticket sales per match, let alone all the extra merch and so on. That’ll help I’m sure, certainly at a time in which it seems that football clubs are looking for every little marginal gain to draw out more profitability, but as Man united are finding out to their detriment, you have to have a competitive team on the pitch.

That’ll do for today I think. Back tomorrow as I desperately try to find a way not to talk about England or the internationals.