Monday, January 10, 2022 at 11:39• Jeroen van Poppel • Last update: 11:47

Arsenal’s surprise elimination in the third round of the FA Cup also has significant financial consequences for the club. The Gunners, who were beaten by Nottingham Forrest (1-0) on Sunday, are missing out on more than five million euros in match ticket revenue, the estimates Evening Standard.

Arsenal came in shockingly weak against the Championship number nine on Sunday and went down 1-0 thanks to a late goal from Lewis Grabban. Nobody among the Londoners had counted on that: season ticket holders would get access to the first two home games in the FA Cup this season, which will therefore not be there.

Supporters are therefore entitled to a refund from Arsenal, or they can have the amount owed deducted from the price of next season’s season ticket. The amount to which a season ticket holder is entitled varies, depending on the place in the stadium, but averages around fifty pounds per game, converted sixty euros. Arsenal has 46,000 season ticket holders, bringing the loss of income to about 5.5 million euros.

Remarkably, Arsenal failed to fire a single shot on target against Nottingham. Mikel Arteta seemed ashamed afterwards. “We weren’t good enough and we have to apologize for that,” the Arsenal manager, who did not want to point out the many absent players, told ITV. “I don’t want to apologize, I expected the team I’ve put in place to do better. If you don’t, you’re out of the cup. We needed more drive, more hunger to win a duel at any cost. We were not at our level.”