Manchester City are putting extra safety precautions in place for Arsenal’s visit, following bad behaviour by Liverpool and Chelsea fans.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 31: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, looks on during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton FC at Etihad Stadium on December 31, 2022 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, looks on during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton FC at Etihad Stadium on December 31, 2022. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

The Manchester Evening News report that Manchester City are introducing a number of measures to address recent crowd trouble at cup games.

Liverpool supporters at the League Cup game in December threw objects down onto the home fans in the South Stand, including a cup weighed down by coins that gave a 15-year-old girl a head wound.

Chelsea fans then caused similar issues in the FA Cup clash earlier this month, with another supporter struck by something thrown down from the away end.

To combat this, City are making a number of changes, including covers on the first four rows of seats in the second tier, extra stewards to police the game, and paper cups replacing plastic cups.

As a cynical Arsenal fan, it feels like it’s worth pointing out that the simpler solution would be just to move more of the away fans down to the lower tier.

The reason City have these issues to begin with is that when they increase their away allocation for cup games, they use their upper-tier seating for the extra fans.

Manchester City v Arsenal - Premier League - Etihad Stadium Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola on the touchline during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Picture date: Saturday August 28, Copyright: Nick Potts
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola on the touchline during the Premier League match against Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Picture date: Saturday, August 28, 2021 Copyright: Nick Potts

If City expanded the away end equivalently in the lower tier, Arsenal fans would be sitting above Arsenal fans.

But that would help those Arsenal fans to create a better atmosphere, so City prioritise sporting advantage over fan safety and then blame individual fans when the problem they allowed to happen leads to negative consequences they could have prevented.

That being said, there’s no defending the Chelsea, Liverpool, or potential Arsenal fans throwing things at other human beings over a football result.

Hopefully, the travelling support on Friday will show that support in a classier fashion than their big-six rivals.