"Football manager or bank manager?"

That was the banner drawing the attention of departing Arsenal fans outside Emirates Stadium after the club's latest defeat, this time against Aston Villa, pleading with Arsene Wenger to "spend" significant money on significant players in the transfer market.

Inside the stadium, one faction booed and sang "six per cent, you're having a laugh" in relation to ticket price rises as the players ambled round the pitch on an excruciating 'lap of appreciation'. The rest tried to drown out the negativity with applause––but the stadium was already two thirds empty.

The Emirates crowd is usually extensively pruned by the final whistle (another hindrance to the already dubious-at-best atmosphere). But seeing as this was the last home game of the season, it was a pretty damning act of apathy.

An internal class war which has been simmering beneath the surface at Arsenal is now reaching boiling point. Quite simply, some loyal and long-standing supporters––not fair-weather supporters or glory hunters––are being priced out of renewing their season tickets. Every spectator in the land has had to acquiesce to more demanding ticket prices since the commercial revolution that created the Premier League, TV deals and hyper-inflated wages. Not just for the players are getting paid more, directors and board members are raking it in too.

Now, resentment is mushrooming: the perception is growing that fans' hard-earned cash isn't being invested in a team capable of providing value for money on match days. Prices haven't gone up for three years, but 6.5 per cent is steep in what for some is an undeniably austere age. Arsenal were already charging the highest amount in the Premier League for season tickets. It's only going to get pricier as time goes on.

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It makes scant difference to the corporate regime running a club if the bums on seats are of proletariat or bourgeois descent. In fact, they'd probably prefer the yes man nature of the latter. And that will push prices higher still.

How long will it be before we're talking about an 'AFC Arsenal' breakaway club, à la FC United of Manchester and AFC Wimbledon? The blueprint is already there.

Mention of such a drastic move is perhaps premature. However, there are still some working class Arsenal fans who remember when they could easily afford to take the whole family to a game and now feel they are being forced to sever their ties with the club and a piece of their identity. Things could get worse if new majority shareholder Stan Kroenke proves to be a wolf in sheep's clothing and starts taking money out of the club or loading it with debt.

This leads us to the other side of the story. The board will say they're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If Arsenal fans want the club to regularly challenge for honors, revenues must continue to grow (Although the fact that Arsenal appear to have mothballed the trophy-winning department in favor of a youth academy isn't helping that argument).

Arsenal can't presently match their rivals' commercial income from global merchandise; the wage bill is already bigger in relative terms than Manchester United's. That fact is something the club is trying to address, and that brings its own tensions for older fans who feel undervalued against the 'global fanbase', like the demure kid at school who always behaves and performs well only for some obnoxious little runt to get all the attention for doing one thing right.

"Be careful what you wish for" is the message. Prudence (some might say bloody-minded parsimony) and stability is better than gambling (some might call it speculating to accumulate) and losing.

But as the expense of living as a fan/spectator/consumer/pawn becomes more and more exorbitant, some will wish Arsenal had never moved to Emirates Stadium. Some may decide to pool their resources, as 15 men did to form Royal Arsenal in 1886, restore the club in situ to South East London, recreate the first ever all-red Arsenal shirt, and start again. Watch this space.

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