Chelsea stoical after low Euro gate at Bridge

Just under 34,000 spectators turned up for Tuesday’s Group E opener against Bayer Leverkusen, manager Andre Villas-Boas’s first European match in charge.

The attendance was still 10,000 more than for the group game against Rosenborg four years ago, a fixture that represented the nadir in club-supporter relations over ticket prices.

But Tuesday’s figure did follow a 33 per cent rise in Champions League ticket prices, which has upset some fans and has sparked a campaign on Twitter for a boycott of next month’s home match against Genk.

Chelsea slashed their Champions League prices almost in half after fans baulked at paying £48 per ticket for the Rosenborg game. But they went back up to £40 this season, with tickets for other competitions also increasing for the second straight year following a four-year season-ticket price freeze.

It is understood Chelsea are remaining calm about Tuesday’s attendance. Clubs always prefer to play their opening game away to give them longer to sell tickets for their first home match.

Recent signing Mikel Arteta believes Arsenal have the quality to end their trophy drought sooner rather than later.

The 29-year-old joined the North London club on transfer deadline day from Everton for a reported fee of £10m.

Arteta made his Arsenal debut in Saturday’s victory against Swansea and featured in the hard-earned 1-1 draw at Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.

Despite only making two appearances and spending little more than two weeks at the club, the Spaniard insists he has seen enough to convince him that Arsenal could soon end their six-year wait for a trophy.

“We need to settle as quickly as possible and I try to help the team in the areas I am able to,” said Arteta.

“We have five or six new players coming in and they are going to be an important part of the team.

“We all need to be together and I think the spirit is really good, the manager is really positive about it and we know that we will be fine.

“Most of the new players came in at the last minute so it is not going to happen in the first minute but when you have got the quality, it makes things easier.

“The challenge here is to win trophies and at Everton I didn’t have the chance to do that.”