MEMBERS DAY at the £390 million Emirates Stadium was good fun but Tomas Rosicky didn't play in the 11-a-side practice match.
The game was mostly kids with Almunia and Poom in goal, Flamini in midfield, Cygan in defence.
It was 0-0 at half-time and in the second half Aliadiere skipped down the right and clipped the ball over and the tall, blond Nicklas Bendtner knocked in the only goal of the game. Bendtner looked good.
THE PITCH IS so wide that the playing area looks like a different kind of rectangle. It's the widest pitch in the Premiership.
While the practice match was going on, refereed by Arsene, a fitness coach, dressed in blue, jogged up and down the length of the pitch, over and over again, with four red-shirted players : Eboue, Rosicky,Toure and Adebayor.
And this quintet jogged back and forward ON THE PITCH while the match was going on. The pitch is so wide that the ball never came near them.
Afterwards the announcer asked Arsene Wenger a few questions and Arsene promised to make history in the new stadium. When asked about transfers he said that he likes to do them quietly. When you talk in public it becomes more complicated, he said.
My biggest fear is that the club will not use the big screens and the PA judicously.
The sound system is fantastic but the club might use technology to bombard fans with ads, and try to hype them up by constantly showing goals we have all seen 150 times.
That would be very damaging. If they do that they will not allow the fans time to find their voices.
AFC can be quite subtle, allowing human beings to feel their way into a huge new stadium, and play groovy instrumental music quietly, with a few appropriate songs, or they can be crude and vulgar and deafening, which will create a passive televiewer crowd which will never come alive to encourage the players when they need help.
The Jumbotrons helped to create Highbury the Library.
Don't do that again, chaps. Don't allow a thick DJ to go on a huge ego-trip.
Nurturing the atmosphere at the Emirates is more important than the ego of any DJ.
We reckoned there were about 15,000 people there and 80% were wearing redcurrant and red Arsenal shirts. About 70% had digital cameras and all these happy fans were taking thousands of pics of each other and their stunning new stadium, which will have been emailed round the world already.
And we were just the same. By the time I went to Tottenham Court Road, bought some headphones at MicroAnvica, and got home at 3.30 pm, there were four photos in my inbox.
During the second half of the practice match we got a call confirming that Ashley Cole will be sold to Chelski for £16 million next week.
He has burned his bridges, and Arsenal have to sell to buy, so I will not be losing any sleep over the departure of a player who met the manager of Chelsea secretly but still sees himself as the "victim" of the events triggered by his secret meeting.
Ashley Cole is no longer important to what Arsenal do because he did not play last season. And he would not have played in Paris if Flamini had been fit.