Pep: 'The players deserve a full stadium, we need our fans!'

[SWP's back]

i'm non-English, but it's disappointing to see empty seat during half break and the last 10 minutes.
maybe it's City fan culture since long time ago, and nothing can do to change it. not even Syeikh.
it looks so bad in television. feel embarrassing sometimes.
in my country, our fans rarely left the seat until the final whistle.

Ermm

Nah. I'm not biting, you may not release me.

 

[Phil1]

Read four articles this morning and not one of them mentions the fact that thousands couldn't go due to it being rearranged at the last minute and no ticket sales on the day.

How's the Bournemouth game looking? Saturday 3pm and not on the tele.

It's poor, mate. I understand his point (Peps) and hopefully things will gradually improve, but last night wasn't the time to bring it up. It's a headline writers dream and I've seen a few journalists focus in on that instead of the masterclass of football (which was quite possibly the best I've ever seen from a City side) and go with the narrative that our attendances are bad.
I already think we get an unfair press in this regard. I'm not arsed about what some fuckwit on social media thinks as to me it's the last thing they have to slate us for and any grown up seriously attacking a club for their crowd needs to get the fuck out more, but the media are a different kettle of fish. For them to mock us is bollocks. Not as much as some of our supposedly fans though, they're the worse.
We've already come a long long way in a short time. Our attendances are actually fabulous when you take away the bluster and bullshit and they will continue to get better as the trophies stack up. For now though we've got to accept there will be midweek games that aren't sold out.

 

[r.soleofsalford]

Spurs apparently sold tickets at £70 for the 3 group games and had a decent attendance as a result. Midweek games will always be an issue for us with added cost and work commitments, especially at late notice

they also know they dont have to pay out again when the teams go into the last 16 because they wont be in it.

 

[cheddar404]

SeasonCards became too expensive five years ago and as a result people either sacked off the cups or were fired to sack of City altogether.

I know lads who were right up there in Loyalty Points, lads you'd never expect to stop going to City in a million years, who don't miss going one bit and have found other things to spend their spare cash on that's cheaper rather than scrimp and save every penny just to afford a SC.

The club probably think they've done us a big favour this year freezing prices but they've been too expensive for ages. Even fans came out with "well done City" when it was announced that £750 was a fair price for what was £525 not that long ago for a club in exactly the same position they were when it was that price. That's not a "well done" that's a "fuck me I can stretch my attendance, just, for one more year, phew".

It might have been cheap tonight but it's fucking expensive across the season as a whole so the odd games where it's cheap don't make up for the extortion of ticket prices and travel expenses over the 50+ games we play.

We've got halfway there with the £30 away tickets but there needs to be far far far more cheap SeasonCards available for fans.

It's not just about buying a ticket neither, it's about transport to games whether it be Beswick or Bournemouth or Besiktas. So yeah, £17.50 was a decent price tonight but a tank+half of petrol twice in a week next week going down to Swansea twice and £75 coming out for a SC on payday tomorrow is not.

Many many fans have fucked the cup scheme off because the price of the SC is more than enough.

This is exactly it. The same has happened at United too. I know loads that have stopped going or cut back on matches. They just have more fans to take their place to mask the problem.

 

[Bob the Baker]

Booing the anthem was always the best part of going to European matches. If I can't do it, I'm not going.

 

[bobom]

Not bothered one bit. After the latest news of the money being given to the teams which have won it, Ill be definitely still booing.

Even if it affects the team's performance? I think this is the point pep was trying to make.

 

[mrtwiceaseason]

Sorry if posted but BT said last night"a crowd of 30,000 which is 13,000 less than was expected on Tuesday night "

So looks like we expected 43,000 on Tuesday night

 

[Palerider]

Peps absolutely right. Booing the anthem creates a negative atmosphere from the start. You cannot state 'I hate UEFA' and then play in one of their competitions. Where's the credibility in that? As for the attendance, we simply do not have the fan base to cope with multiple competitions.

 

[yatesy94]

Peps right, the players have been giving everything this season it's only right we show our full support for CL games. I'm willing to put aside the UEFA nonsense they've inflicted on this club as we're apart of the elite now & need to act as so. Bearing in mind last night's showing was an anomaly with it being postponed etc, I fully anticipate both virtually full houses v Celtic/Barca - bound to be entertaining fixtures both of them.

 

[BlueMedic]

Strange night to make the request given the circumstances, and the atmosphere actually sounded really good.

Obviously it would be nice to fill it for CL matches but I just don't see it happening, there's obviously enough reasons for people not to go mid-week that we lose about 10,000 from the weekend usually.

We'll likely get 40,000+ for most & I think Pep will just have to accept that as enough - I get the boost a full singing stadium can bring but the players should be plenty motivated enough to perform for the tens of thousands who turn up & many tens of thousands more supporting from afar.