The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust has written to Ivan Gazidis, requesting his assistance in preventing the Christmas Eve fixture against Liverpool from going ahead.

Although the Premier League have confirmed that there will be no fixture taking place on Christmas Eve at 4pm or later, they’ve refused to deny that a game could take place earlier in the day.

As that continues to be the case, it starts to seem increasingly more likely that the match between Arsenal and Liverpool on the 23rd could be pushed back a day.

The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust has asked for Gazidis’ help to stop this, explaining in their letter: “At our most recent members event a vote from those present demonstrated 100% opposition to this scheduling proposal. The AST therefore requests that you do all you can to secure alternative options to the game being played on Christmas Eve.”

However, if nothing can be done to stop the Christmas Eve fixture going ahead, the AST asks that Arsenal at least make an effort to support the fans who commit to attending anyway:

“Our proposal would be that a game scheduled at such an inconvenient and unpopular time is reclassified as a category B game for pricing reasons. This would lessen the impact on supporters from a pricing range of £65.50 to £128; to £37.50 to £95.

“We would also ask that the club ensures that it offers to refund anyone who makes the ticket available for resale in the exchange but is unable to sell it.”

It’s not an unreasonable request, in my opinion. The AST aren’t asking for a full refund for all fans, just those who can’t attend and make every effort to sell their tickets on.

Given the disruption to public transport around Christmas time, a reduction in ticket price also seems fair, given fans may have to seek alternative travel methods at additional cost.

Alternatively, some fans may need to re-book their holiday plans to be able to attend the game, since they would have had no reason to believe that a match would be on December 24 when making those plans.