Arsenal enjoyed a superb 2025/26 season, winning the Premier League and making it all the way to the UEFA Champions League final, where they heartbreakingly lost on penalties. Fans are extremely excited to see how the team performs in the upcoming campaign.
The Gunners play their first competitive fixture on August 16, taking on Manchester City for the FA Community Shield, before kicking off the Premier League season with a home game against newly promoted Coventry. To prepare, the team have been hard at work at their pre-season training camp in Girona.
In addition to being put through their paces at the training camp, Mikel Arteta’s men are also getting some much-needed games under their belt. The Gunners’ first pre-season friendly saw them face off against Girona, who are preparing for a season in the Segunda Division after being relegated from La Liga.
Naturally, Arsenal fans have been waiting eagerly to see their team in action again, and many were looking forward to catching the game against Girona.
In previous years, such fixtures were streamed on Arsenal’s YouTube channel, but this time around, club have launched a new subscription-based plan to stream the pre-season matches on their official website (arsenal.com) and official app (The Arsenal).
Much to the disappointment of fans that paid for the match pass, however, software bugs played spoilsport when it was time for the game to kick off. Many posted to X soon after, voicing their frustrations.
Fans who opted to watch the game on their official website were met with messages like ‘NO DATA AVAILABLE Load failed’ on their browsers. Some saw ‘CONTENT NOT FOUND getPageByRouteld error 500’.
For fans waiting to check out the match on the app, the error message read ‘Live stream is not available RELOAD’.
But what took the absolute mickey was the fact that app sent multiple notifications letting fans know about the ‘Kick Off’, notifying ‘First Half begins’. Wave after wave of the same notification popped up on the screen and led to an app which was not working at all.
The game kicked off at the scheduled time of 7:00 PM BST, and fans continued waiting but the tech team failed to resolve the issue.
Content creator Rory Cook, who goes under by moniker “Rory Talks Football” on social media, urged the club to consider alternative streaming methods as supporters continued to miss the action.
Arsenal need to make an early decision to stream this on the YouTube channel
— Rory Talks Football (@Rory_Talks_Ball) August 1, 2026
Neither app nor website working, people have paid to watch, and mainly the first half
Ultimately, that is the route Arsenal ended up going, apologising for the inconvenience and opting to stream the game to YouTube for free.
Despite the initial streaming hiccups, the game turned out to be an extremely enjoyable one for Arsenal fans. The reigning Premier League champions put in a well-rounded display to beat Girona 4-1, with new signing Christos Tzolis and young phenom Max Dowman getting on the scoresheet.
Next, the Gunners take on another Spanish team, Real Betis, at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Wednesday.
