General Premier League Thread 2018-19

LuckyLloyd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

Weeknight, local fan base, school evening, late finish at work, & 10 days notice of the re arranging of the fixture all add to the problem. Probably have a core base of 70k working class fans.

As you say, still in the hunt for 4 trophies, maybe families are prioritising bringing them & the kids to a fixture of a bit More importance.

So why can't they fill it on weekends? They have a terrible level of support considering their last decade of investment and success. Why try and pretend different when it's objective reality?

Frankie Cortese

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

So why can't they fill it on weekends? They have a terrible level of support considering their last decade of investment and success. Why try and pretend different when it's objective reality?

I find it bizarre that City fans are meant to be embarrassed on behalf of each other and the club cos of the simple fact that they don't have a massive fanbase. As if having a tight knit, but not huge, local core support makes them less deserving somehow of the investment & success. It's all a bit weird.

Mr.H

Frankie Cortese wrote:

I know all that, I’m not having a go at any set of fans but it was clear that both clubs had a bad turn out tonight & home team or not, it’s them that are getting the blunt of it. Anyways, a discussion for another day.

Except the home team are at home......

Would anfield or old trafford have been as empty?

LuckyLloyd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

I find it bizarre that City fans are meant to be embarrassed on behalf of each other and the club cos of the simple fact that they don't have a massive fanbase. As if having a tight knit, but not huge, local core support makes them less deserving somehow of the investment & success. It's all a bit weird.

Sounds like you accept it's a thing then, which is progress I suppose.

It looks bad, it highlights what underpins the club's current success. A wall of money created through centuries of tyranny. But sure look, if City fans or the people of Manchester don't care about going to see one of the greatest clubs sides ever assembled play football I'll assume they don't care about that.

Mr.H

Frankie Cortese wrote:

I find it bizarre that City fans are meant to be embarrassed on behalf of each other and the club cos of the simple fact that they don't have a massive fanbase. As if having a tight knit, but not huge, local core support makes them less deserving somehow of the investment & success. It's all a bit weird.

Well if nobody is interested in the team they have no justification for over inflating their self sponsorship.

Frankie Cortese

Mr.H wrote: »

Except the home team are at home......

Would anfield or old trafford have been as empty?

What difference does that make how many would of been there?

Frankie Cortese

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Sounds like you accept it's a thing then, which is progress I suppose.

It looks bad, it highlights what underpins the club's current success. A wall of money created through centuries of tyranny. But sure look, if City fans or the people of Manchester don't care about going to see one of the greatest clubs sides ever assembled play football I'll assume they don't care about that.

Mother of god what are you on about. I’ve said previous they have just a local core support & don’t get the fascination about empty seats & you go off on a waffle about centuries of tyranny. We’re talking about football fans not history of Warfare or slavery.

No need to educate me further on the subject, it doesn’t interest me.

LuckyLloyd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

Mother of god what are you on about. I’ve said previous they have just a local core support & don’t get the fascination about empty seats & you go off on a waffle about centuries of tyranny. We’re talking about football fans not history of Warfare or slavery.

No need to educate me further on the subject, it doesn’t interest me.

I'm on about the obviously incongruous spectacle of a team chasing a quadruple playing many of their games in a half empty stadium and failing to sell out crunch CL ties, and how it highlights and draws attention to why City are successful. When Paris play infront of a raucous atmosphere you almost can forget the context.

You fully and completely understand the subject, that's clear. You are feigning ignorance.

Shanotheslayer

Man Utd

Boards is obsessed with City's stadium.

Every single week. Can add it to the list of Liverpool/United sh1te that goes on. Absolutely boring to read and the same thing being repeated each week.

The most ironic thing of the lot is the opposition fans that are saying it wouldn't give a flying fck if their stadium was half full or whatever and they won the league

niallo27

Chelsea

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

Boards is obsessed with City's stadium.

Every single week. Can add it to the list of Liverpool/United sh1te that goes on. Absolutely boring to read and the same thing being repeated each week.

The most ironic thing of the lot is the opposition fans that are saying it wouldn't give a flying fck if their stadium was half full or whatever and they won the league

What has this got to do with the liverpool/Utd ****e that goes on, they are talking about City here. Why would you even bring that up, do you not see irony is complaining about liverpool/utd ****e when you yourself brought it up for no reason at all.

Quazzie

Man Utd

For all the people having a pop at City for not filling their stadium at home games, do you also think it's embarrassing that Spurs couldn't fill out their billion euro stadium on their first home game?

Shanotheslayer

Man Utd

niallo27 wrote: »

What has this got to do with the liverpool/Utd ****e that goes on, they are talking about City here. Why would you even bring that up, do you not see irony is complaining about liverpool/utd ****e when you yourself brought it up for no reason at all.

I brought it up as a comparison to make a point at how frequent it is. I would have thought that was pretty evident from the post.

Nitpick away by all means though.

Baggly

Man Utd

Quazzie wrote: »

For all the people having a pop at City for not filling their stadium at home games, do you also think it's embarrassing that Spurs couldn't fill out their billion euro stadium on their first home game?

Could be down to the mid week game. Be interesting to see their first home weekend fixture or CL tie.

Frankie Cortese

Quazzie wrote: »

For all the people having a pop at City for not filling their stadium at home games, do you also think it's embarrassing that Spurs couldn't fill out their billion euro stadium on their first home game?

WAS it not sold out?

Spurs will have the same problem City have, when the novelty starts wearing off & teams outside the top 5 come calling they’ll get 50k at most, Wembley proved that, don’t think they ever got over 65k in there for a league game.

ERG89

Quazzie wrote: »

For all the people having a pop at City for not filling their stadium at home games, do you also think it's embarrassing that Spurs couldn't fill out their billion euro stadium on their first home game?

Slightly surprised by it but the most important thing is they won their first game there & ended a very bad run of form in the league. They need to get CL football more than the extra few thousand to get a full house. Their books will tell you that story too.
To be fair in comparison Spurs aren't top of the league playing very likely the best football the club will ever play either. If Pep were at United they'd be turning fans away looking for tickets every league match day. Can't think of many grounds where that wouldn't be happening tbh.

Bridge93

Man Utd

Unless people expect a load of fans in their teens/20s/30s etc in 2008 to suddenly jump from Man Utd to City where do you all expect these fans to have magically appeared from? City's growing fanbase will be seen in years to come when kids who grew up with their success are of game going age. Adults arent going to suddenly swap teams except for those in far away lands who cant go anyway. Every time they play on tv this comes up, its so boring.

GavRedKing

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

WAS it not sold out?

Spurs will have the same problem City have, when the novelty starts wearing off & teams outside the top 5 come calling they’ll get 50k at most, Wembley proved that, don’t think they ever got over 65k in there for a league game.

Spurs v Arsenal was over 83k.

A Premier league record.

Frankie Cortese

GavRedKing wrote: »

Spurs v Arsenal was over 83k.

A Premier league record.

Forgot to add in except for Arsenal or other top 5 clubs.

GavRedKing

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

Forgot to add in except for Arsenal or other top 5 clubs.

I've done a quick check since they moved into Wembley.

Bournemouth - 73k
Swansea - 65k
Palace - 65k
West Brom - 65k
Everton - 76k
Huddersfield Town - 68k
Leicester City - 77k

The issue is, these were all last year.

This year Wembley has been pretty empty, they've even managed to get less than 30k in for a game.

Frankie Cortese

ERG89 wrote: »

Slightly surprised by it but the most important thing is they won their first game there & ended a very bad run of form in the league. They need to get CL football more than the extra few thousand to get a full house. Their books will tell you that story too.
To be fair in comparison Spurs aren't top of the league playing very likely the best football the club will ever play either. If Pep were at United they'd be turning fans away looking for tickets every league match day. Can't think of many grounds where that wouldn't be happening tbh.

See I’ve a problem with this now.

Yes, United would be turning them away, but it would be a different type of fan, overseas fan. Local fans would have there tickets, most of the local fans who attend games get one, maybe a medium percentage or so pick and chose their games based on there income for the month & another small to medium percentage just can’t afford it.

That’s the same at ALL clubs, the difference the likes of United have & the advantage is the huge numbers they get from Ireland, Scandinavia, Asia etc.

City just don’t don’t have that, that takes years to build. They shouldn’t be mocked or put down for it.

Bridge93

Man Utd

Interestingly after a quick check at two different sources, it seems City have a 98.2% coverage of tickets on their home league games. Liverpool have 97.9%. United 98.4%. Arsenal 99.2% have the highest. Whether these all show up is a seperate issue i suppose.

Frankie Cortese

Bridge93 wrote: »

Interestingly after a quick check at two different sources, it seems City have a 98.2% coverage of tickets on their home league games. Liverpool have 97.9%. United 98.4%. Arsenal 99.2% have the highest. Whether these all show up is a seperate issue i suppose.

Get your tin hat. They’re coming for you.

Fitz*

Man Utd

To be fair, I think Spurs had restrictions on how many tickets they were allowed to sell for different category games. I don't know if that was in place for just this season as they were not supposed to be there.

Bridge93

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

See I’ve a problem with this now.

Yes, United would be turning them away, but it would be a different type of fan, overseas fan. Local fans would have there tickets, most of the local fans who attend games get one, maybe a medium percentage or so pick and chose their games based on there income for the month & another small to medium percentage just can’t afford it.

That’s the same at ALL clubs, the difference the likes of United have & the advantage is the huge numbers they get from Ireland, Scandinavia, Asia etc.

City just don’t don’t have that, that takes years to build. They shouldn’t be mocked or put down for it.

City fans are labelled plastic if they do show up on the back of success (despite this literally happening for every successful team in every sport ever) and even more weirdly theyve been called plastic when their attendance stays at what it was. They cant win

GavRedKing

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

See I’ve a problem with this now.

Yes, United would be turning them away, but it would be a different type of fan, overseas fan. Local fans would have there tickets, most of the local fans who attend games get one, maybe a medium percentage or so pick and chose their games based on there income for the month & another small to medium percentage just can’t afford it.

That’s the same at ALL clubs, the difference the likes of United have & the advantage is the huge numbers they get from Ireland, Scandinavia, Asia etc.

City just don’t don’t have that, that takes years to build. They shouldn’t be mocked or put down for it.

Well if you're building a massive stadium on the back of the, if you build it, they will come mantra and then dont sell out said stadium week in week out, people are going to have a pop off them for it.

Also the fact they go the stadium handed to them by the council who also paid in part for the original conversion from track and field to a football stadium is probably another point to bring up.

GavRedKing

Man Utd

FitzShane wrote: »

To be fair, I think Spurs had restrictions on how many tickets they were allowed to sell for different category games. I don't know if that was in place for just this season as they were not supposed to be there.

That was just this season AFAIK.

Last year they requested and were granted an exemption to sell over 55k tickets for games.

Wembley could only host a certain amount of games a year over 55k and Spurs got an exemption from it.

yourdeadwright

Man Utd

Bridge93 wrote: »

Interestingly after a quick check at two different sources, it seems City have a 98.2% coverage of tickets on their home league games. Liverpool have 97.9%. United 98.4%. Arsenal 99.2% have the highest. Whether these all show up is a seperate issue i suppose.

That's very interesting ,
Its quite clear that City always have more empty seats than the others ,
DO you reckon its people not turning up or City fudging the books for finical fair play ?

I spent time in Didsbury and rocked up to City games and got tickets day off the match, 2 Liverpool game and a Champions league game but That was over 2 years ago all three times there was visible empty seats ,

City fans would be bet to ask what its like now ,

Frankie Cortese

GavRedKing wrote: »

Also the fact they go the stadium handed to them by the council who also paid in part for the original conversion from track and field to a football stadium is probably another point to bring up.

What? Why on Earth is that a point to bring up? Do you bring it up for West Ham?

Hardly the clubs fault the council built a stadium for the commonwealth games with no mantra for its use afterwards if City didn’t take it.

Bridge93

Man Utd

yourdeadwright wrote: »

That's very interesting ,
Its quite clear that City always have more empty seats than the others ,
DO you reckon its people not turning up or City fudging the books for finical fair play ?

I spent time in Didsbury and rocked up to City games and got tickets day off the match, 2 Liverpool game and a Champions league game but That was over 2 years ago all three times there was visible empty seats ,

City fans would be bet to ask what its like now ,

Hard to know. Might be season ticket holders not showing up but being counted? Im sure there are loads of ways clubs can fudge it a bit to bump up numbers

GavRedKing

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

What? Why on Earth is that a point to bring up? Do you bring it up for West Ham?

Hardly the clubs fault the council built a stadium for the commonwealth games with no mantra for its use afterwards if City didn’t take it.

West Ham's case is even worse than City.

Nobody was talking about them though.

TFBubendorfer

Man Utd

GavRedKing wrote: »

Well if you're building a massive stadium on the back of the, if you build it, they will come mantra and then dont sell out said stadium week in week out, people are going to have a pop off them for it.

Also the fact they go the stadium handed to them by the council who also paid in part for the original conversion from track and field to a football stadium is probably another point to bring up.

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't reply to that because if someone is determined believe in BS, facts won't make much of a difference, but I'll bite anyway.

City jumped at the chance to move into a bigger stadium because Maine Road had become much too small and the waiting list for season tickets was several years long. I know that for sure because I was on it, and by the time I would have gotten my ticket I was no longer living there.

In fact, even the original capacity of the Etihad had become too small, which is why they built another tier on one of the ends.

They do manage to sell out the Etihad, no matter who often you state the opposite. There was some nonsense before the Liverpool match, what a joke club they are because there were tickets available a few days before. In reality the game had been sold out since October and the tickets on sale were returns but hey, who cares about facts when you can pretend otherwise.

Also, the council didn't pay for the stadium conversion, City did. And that was years before the oil money came in, at a time when they were struggling to finance it all. What's more, the athletics stadium would not have been built at all if City had not agreed to become tenants after the Commonwealth games because the council would not have wanted to build a white elephant for one single event.

Liam O

Bridge93 wrote: »

Hard to know. Might be season ticket holders not showing up but being counted? Im sure there are loads of ways clubs can fudge it a bit to bump up numbers

Ah now, you wouldn't catch Man City at any kind of dishonest behaviour.

ERG89

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

See I’ve a problem with this now.

Yes, United would be turning them away, but it would be a different type of fan, overseas fan. Local fans would have there tickets, most of the local fans who attend games get one, maybe a medium percentage or so pick and chose their games based on there income for the month & another small to medium percentage just can’t afford it.

That’s the same at ALL clubs, the difference the likes of United have & the advantage is the huge numbers they get from Ireland, Scandinavia, Asia etc.

City just don’t don’t have that, that takes years to build. They shouldn’t be mocked or put down for it.

Do you think United wouldn't be turning away locals if they were playing like City?
Very naive to think that the only ones losing out are tourists. Whether you can accept it or not people are a little confused at why City's enormous commercial growth (far higher growth than the likes of even the kings of that game Man United) has not yet yielded noticeably bigger crowds.
People know what's going on that's why they say it, to get a kick out of people trying to explain it. It doesn't bother me as God help me there are more important things to me than a football club adjusting accounts to make it seem more financially succesful than it is. As they are hardly alone in doing that.

Frankie Cortese

GavRedKing wrote: »

West Ham's case is even worse than City.

Nobody was talking about them though.

Nobody was talking about running tracks or stadiums being gifted either until you brought it up. We were discussing valid reason which contribute to the stadium not consistently selling out.

fullstop

Bridge93 wrote: »

Interestingly after a quick check at two different sources, it seems City have a 98.2% coverage of tickets on their home league games. Liverpool have 97.9%. United 98.4%. Arsenal 99.2% have the highest. Whether these all show up is a seperate issue i suppose.

Well Arsenal at least count all season tickets in the attendance, whether they turn up or not. It was discussed earlier in this thread IIRC. So maybe it's the same for the others.

I don't really get the obsession people have with City's attendances, and it's fairly cringe to see lads on here every week posting about the 'Emptyhad' as they sit on their sofa watching a league that they might attend once or twice a season, if that.

8-10

Man Utd

fullstop wrote: »

Well Arsenal at least count all season tickets in the attendance, whether they turn up or not. It was discussed earlier in this thread IIRC. So maybe it's the same for the others.

I don't really get the obsession people have with City's attendances, and it's fairly cringe to see lads on here every week posting about the 'Emptyhad' as they sit on their sofa watching a league that they might attend once or twice a season, if that.

In fairness if you support a different team in the league, Liverpool in my experience, it's basically impossible to get to 2 league games in a season unless you got on the ladder years ago.

I don't even bother trying anymore as it's a joke how much demand outstrips supply. To see an even better team just up the road in the opposite situation is more than odd.

Shanotheslayer

Man Utd

8-10 wrote: »

In fairness if you support a different team in the league, Liverpool in my experience, it's basically impossible to get to 2 league games in a season unless you got on the ladder years ago.

I don't even bother trying anymore as it's a joke how much demand outstrips supply. To see an even better team just up the road in the opposite situation is more than odd.

It's really not odd though based on the history of clubs in terms of fan size and trophies.

In a decade or two it'll probably be plenty of City fans around.

8-10

Man Utd

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

It's really not odd though based on the history of clubs in terms of fan size and trophies.

In a decade or two it'll probably be plenty of City fans around.

If they were in London it'd be a different story altogether, even if they start getting huge demand they still can't charge as much as the London clubs because of the local economy. You saw what happened when Liverpool's owners tried to change pricing to support the stadium expansion

Frankie Cortese

Shanotheslayer wrote: »

It's really not odd though based on the history of clubs in terms of fan size and trophies.

In a decade or two it'll probably be plenty of City fans around.

Exactly, I’m sure the clubs fans hope they have 20+ years of success so they can attract a **** load of regular tourists & finally be regarded in footballing circles as ‘genuine’ ‘proper’ ‘non-plastic’ fans.
Ohh how They long for that day ðŸ™ðŸ¼

ozzy jr

The reason people bring up citys attendances all the time is, for years they went on about how everyone in Manchester supported city, no one supported United. They were a massive club, with a massive fan base. If they just got a bit of success everyone would see this.

Now, we are at peak Manchester city, last night they played one of their last home games in a potential historical season, and all we're hearing is ****e like, it's a school night, people are working late ffs

Imagine if Newcastle, Everton, Villa and so on were handed this success, tickets would be like gold dust.

A ****in school night

Frankie Cortese

ozzy jr wrote: »

The reason people bring up citys attendances all the time is, for years they went on about how everyone in Manchester supported city, no one supported United. They were a massive club, with a massive fan base. If they just got a bit of success everyone would see this.

Now, we are at peak Manchester city, last night they played one of their last home games in a potential historical season, and all we're hearing is ****e like, it's a school night, people are working late ffs

Imagine if Newcastle, Everton, Villa and so on were handed this success, tickets would be like gold dust.

A ****in school night

Don’t know what point you’re trying to prove there. So in order for them to say they’ve a huge fan base the stadium has to be sold out?

It was a school night, why are you making a deal out of emphasising that?

Weird obsession it is. What difference does it make to us fans of others clubs what there attendances is?

By the way I’m a Liverpool fan & want to see them unsuccessful as the next Liverpool fan but it’s glaringly obvious most fans are fuming because we’re having our best ever season & we’re 2nd so we need to justify it by belittling something else.

That game isn’t for me to be fair, I remeber City in the old division 2 averaging 28k a game. That fan base has always been solid.

noodler

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

it’s glaringly obvious most fans are fuming because we’re having our best ever season & we’re 2nd so we need to justify it by belittling something else.
.

No, it isn't.

ozzy jr

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

Weird obsession it is.

Yoda? Is that you?

thebaz

Man Utd

Frankie Cortese wrote: »

Embarrassing for whom? The club can’t force people on seats, the fans that are in there every game have nothing to be embarrassed about & the owners have one of the best teams in Europe, I don’t see who should be embarrassed.

Maybe spare a thought for the families who are embarrassed they can’t bring there football mad sons or daughters Cos they can’t afford it & see how easy it is to get a ticket for game.

it doesnt look good top of the league and empty seats , a bit embarassing I would think for all , but all could be righted by lowering the price so more families and kids could go .

Frankie Cortese

noodler wrote: »

No, it isn't.

Yes, it is.

Shanotheslayer

Man Utd

ozzy jr wrote: »

The reason people bring up citys attendances all the time is, for years they went on about how everyone in Manchester supported city, no one supported United. They were a massive club, with a massive fan base. If they just got a bit of success everyone would see this.

Now, we are at peak Manchester city, last night they played one of their last home games in a potential historical season, and all we're hearing is ****e like, it's a school night, people are working late ffs

Imagine if Newcastle, Everton, Villa and so on were handed this success, tickets would be like gold dust.

A ****in school night

You're emphasising school night but as other people mentioned City have much bigger games coming up an expected win against Cardiff.

If somebody wants to do the maths on how much it would cost to go to all the games City have remaining it probably amounts to thousands assuming they get to the finals we expect.

The irony of it all is if City do l get a bigger fanbase people will be commenting saying they're plastic only support because of the money etc.

Kids growing up don't give a sh1te about that stuff. A side from family and location reasons kids will likely support who plays good football

Harry Palmr

Man Utd

As long as they are a UAE plaything they'll be dismissed for one reason or another.

Frankie Cortese

Harry Palmr wrote: »

As long as they are a UAE plaything they'll be dismissed for one reason or another.

As opposed to an American, Russian, Thai or Malaysian plaything?

Right, gotcha.

martyos121

Man Utd

Which Premier League clubs are funded by the American, Russian, Thai or Malaysian states?

Big difference between a foreign owner and being a state-funded football club.

Frankie Cortese

martyos121 wrote: »

Which Premier League clubs are funded by the American, Russian, Thai or Malaysian states?

Big difference between a foreign owner and being a state-funded football club.

But what has the nationality of ANY owner got to do with the topic of working class fans of ANY football club not being able to sell out home games which is the topic of discussion.