Arsenal overstated their home attendances by up to 5,000 fans per game last season, according to police figures

Arsenal fans have often been criticised for their in ability to generate a proper atmosphere at home games despite sell-out crowds.

While the Gunners regularly report that the games at the 60,000 capacity Emirates Stadium have been sold out, it turns out that this is somewhat skewing the figures a bit. According to the Metropolitan Police, Arsenal base their official attendance not on the amount of people at the stadium, but on the amount of tickets sold for the game. This means that at last season's home games against Swansea and Sunderland, the north Londoners overstated their attendance by as much as 5,000 fans - or 8% of the stadium's capacity. But this didn't just happen twice, with the Gunners claiming 22,000 more fans had attended games last year than were actually there. Still, this begs the question - why did 22,000 Arsenal fans buy tickets for games they weren't bothered to turn up for?