Arsenal are acting to fix an oversight with their new ticketing process to prevent empty seats for their match against Chelsea on Tuesday night.

In an attempt to combat ticket touts, Arsenal recently implemented a controversial new ballot system, with tickets allocated at random to those who apply for the game rather than being handed out on a first-come, first-served basis.

The benefit of this change is that it prevents bots from having an advantage over genuine ticket applicants. A bot could purchase a ticket much faster than a human, but that’s irrelevant when you just have to apply before a deadline.

The main problem with the new system is the potential for long-term fans to apply for every game and just get unlucky, never receiving a ticket.

To try and combat that, Arsenal restricted the resale of tickets to fans who already applied through the ballot. If you applied and got unlucky, you just needed to wait for a resale ticket to appear on the club’s ticket exchange.

But Tuesday night’s match against Chelsea highlighted an issue with that system.

The problem was that the ballot for tickets was held before the match was rescheduled. At the time, the game was set for Saturday, March 16th at 12:30 GMT.

Many people who were able to attend on that date applied for tickets, received them, and then saw the game moved to Tuesday, April 23rd at 20:00 BST. A different month, a different day, a different time.

As a result, many ticket holders were no longer able to attend the game, and they listed their tickets on the ticket exchange.

But anyone who was unable to attend on the original date (and thus didn’t apply for the ballot) was restricted from purchasing those tickets.

To put it simply, fans who applied for the original date and could no longer attend struggled to sell, and fans who couldn’t attend in March but now can were unable to buy.

Fortunately, it seems Arsenal have now been informed of the issue and are looking to address it. The ticket exchange has been opened up to fans who have been unsuccessful in any ballots this season, not just the Chelsea game.

That change has seen many of the remaining available tickets snapped up.

Whether the change is too late to ensure a full house remains to be seen, but there are still a few hours to buy tickets before the deadline.