lancs blue said:
Because the people who made this decision have no instinctive "feel" for what attracts the fans. Any City fan who's been going for a fair while could've predicted this match would be in demand, it isn't rocket science.
But you can't blame the club for expecting the usual apathy from a lot of supporters when it comes to cup matches. We only got just over 30k for JUVENTUS didn't we?? The club understandably weigh up all factors i.e.;-
- it's on TV (as always)
- we've just had a stupid amount of games in a very short space of time, for all
of which attendances were down
- money's tight with a lot of people
- some people will prefer/have to watch in pubs or on the internet
- it's a championship side we're playing (no disrespect to Reading at all)
Bearing all this in mind, is it unreasonable for the club to expect an attendance of 35k maximum?? I don't think so. Hopefully they are wrong & demand forces the whole ground to be opened & we sell out. I'm sure the club wants this too. I've had to relocate for both Reading & Kiev - yeah, it's a bit of a pain but it's not rocket science to understand why it's being done.
Hopefully, in a couple of seasons the idea of closing parts of the ground for some games will never be on the agenda.