Manchester City* - 130 charges (and counting...) (Part 1)

[Kopstar]

There’s a few teams where you can sit in their home section and not feel out of place as an away fan. City is one, Arsenal is another.

It’s still not considered the done thing to cheer if Liverpool score but you’re fully aware that there’s quite a few of us in there.

Might be one of the reasons that the atmosphere at the Emptihad and the Emirates is so crap, a sizeable section of the “home” end can’t cheer or jeer the away team, and can bring themselves only to politely applaud goals for the home team - haha

[Mascot]

@cynicaloldgit

See; I would love to know we’re going to win every game. As a supporter, that’s what I want: Liverpool to win every game we play.

It’s how we reach that stage that matters. As you say, being funded by a morally bankrupt, human rights abusing state is not the way to go about it; being financially prudent and painstakingly building the right teams both on and off the pitch is.

Anyway, back to City: cunts.

I’m sure this is something that many of us have experienced,

You’re a kid, somewhere around 13-18, and you get your first game of football manager. Excitedly you start your game, installing yourself as Liverpool manager, and start your season. You find that it’s actually quite hard. You’re losing games, you can’t afford all the best players and some of your players want to leave. This is shit.

So you scrap the game and start again. Only this time, you go into that helpful game editor and start fiddling around. It would be helpful if A few lads weren’t quite as injury prone. And let’s fix those shooting stats on the strikers. They are better than that. Oh, and, that keeper should really have 20 reflexes.

But the big thing to sort is the money. You need to get that better. A few sliders moved later, and Liverpool are a financial behemoth, with commercial income to size of the rest of the league combined, a 70,000 seat Anfield, and owners with bottomless pockets to fund your aspirations.

So on we go with the game. In your first summer you assemble a team so good that the league is over by Christmas, all the domestic cups are in the cabinet with ease, and you secure the Champions League with a 7-0 victory over Bayern Munich.

That was fun. Roll on next season. Except there is something wrong. There is a hollow feeling nagging you, and gnawing at the back of your mind. You cheated. And it’s not the same. It doesn’t feel good. It feels shit.

I imagine that how it feels to be a City fan.

[cynicaloldgit]

@Mascot

you secure the Champions League

I imagine that how it feels to be a City fan.

Nah.

[Kopstar]

From the BBC…

Pep Guardiola, and the Manchester City boss is immediately asked about the response of Kevin Parker, general secretary of City’s official supporters’ club, to Guardiola’s call for more fans to turn up on Saturday.

“I am not going to apologise for what I said,” said Guardiola. "It’s not the first time I’ve said it in my career, I said it at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

"When we play a tough game, like RB Leipzig was, and play three games [soon] after, I know how difficult it is, to ask for us all to do it again on Saturday. What I said was we need the support, it doesn’t matter how many people come, but I invite them to come and enjoy the game because we need the support.

“I am entirely grateful for the support that we had against Leipzig. I always say if guys want to come we will be incredibly grateful because I know how difficult the game will be and I know we need our people. I never sit here and ask why people don’t come. If you don’t come then don’t. I will not apologise to him [Kevin Parker].”

"We are who we are. We are proud of who we are. I know our history, I have learned that they were in the lower divisions and fans travelled to watch them. I don’t want to be like United, Liverpool, Bayern, Barcelona, Madrid - we are who we are.

"People put words in my mouth. I don’t have a problem with fans, if I did I would stand aside. It was an incredibly tough game against Leipzig, I saw how difficult it was for my team in the dressing room and I know Southampton will be tough, so I asked the people to come to help them.

“These guys don’t understand my comments but I am here to defend what I said. When I make mistakes I will apologise, but I will not apologise for what I said. I know who we are. I like the fans that we have.”

[aussielad]

[Kopstar]

Comparing City to the EU?

[aussielad]

It was more the backtracking than comparing Shitty to the EU

[JU97ICE]

@ISMF

It strikes to the heart of the issue. How can a club who famously had high attendances when they were shit and relegated, struggle to fill a stadium when they are reigning champions, have world class players and spent over a billion?

Depends what you mean by high attendances. I headed onto the wiki page for Maine Road stadium, and sure they had capacity crowds in several years over their 80 year history at the stadium, but check out the crowd averages:

Hovering around 30-35k with troughs and peaks of 20k and 40k. Nothing there suggests they have historically had a massive, dedicated fan base. The surprise for me isn’t that their attendances haven’t massively improved in the last couple of decades, but that they haven’t been able to consistently get over that 30-35k average crowd at any point in their history in a two-horse town. It seems 30-35k is pretty consistently their ‘proper’ match-going fanbase and the rest are just the flaky, fair-weather supporters. That’s the way it has always been for them and still remains.

Being a North Melbourne fan in the Aussie rules I can relate to supporting a club with a tiny fanbase ( that’s only gotten smaller with each passing generation) that couldn’t even get proper support in a golden era where we dominated (90’s) but at least North have the excuse of being squeezed out by 12 other teams vying for that support in a city of 3m. City have no such excuse.

[nikz200]

Its funny on two ends, on one side Pep is trying to be some all rallying figure at City which he is clearly not regardless of how successful or strong they have been under him. And their fans are trying to deny and effectively work towards alienating the most famous manager the club has ever had in its history.

In some essence , maybe City as a club no longer represents what their fans stand for? I dont know enough about City as a club to make that claim, but i mostly see the younger ones saying stupid things and acting like big stuff, i rarely see the older fans make alot of noise if any.

[sandsoftime]

Surely Pep is missing the point completely…
It is the fans in the ground that bring the atmosphere and support that generates the energy in the players down on the pitch… and not particularly a full house either.
You only have to look at the 2000 - 3000 LFC fans penned into a segment of any away ground in the country, to realise there is a big difference between fanatical supporters and those that don’t know what the word fanatical means…
Give me 300 reds fans against any number of Cheaty’s and it would be like pitting the Spartans against the Persian army all over again
There is NO history attached to them… the Cheaters do not have the lineage that comes with decades of highs and lows, disappointments versus ecstatic release of emotions as the full time whistle blows… These are character building moments, stories of long ago that are passed down from father to sons…
Cheaty is a plastic club managed by a fraud…!

[mattyhurst]

I remember when Klopp came out and complained about those leaving early. Some people said it was wrong on Klopp however I think most of us agreed. Many reasons can be given, if I go to a Sunday afternoon game I’ll usually take leave for the following day as a trip back to London is risky but I know it’s not for everyone.

However if my local team was offering 12.50 ticks for the CL I’d probably go watch especially RBL. Fact is beyond their core crowd they don’t have a massive support and they’ve become quite disliked very quickly. Manchester isn’t particularly sparse of people and it’s hardly in the middle of nowhere.

As for the lack of buses? Where from? There is a tram service from Piccadilly for starters, and it’s about 30 mins walk.

As I said like Man Utd they will be flogging these to the students when they arrive so Pep will have his crowd in the next few months

[Trader]

@Mascot

So on we go with the game. In your first summer you assemble a team so good that the league is over by Christmas, all the domestic cups are in the cabinet with ease, and you secure the Champions League with a 7-0 victory over Bayern Munich.

That was fun. Roll on next season. Except there is something wrong. There is a hollow feeling nagging you, and gnawing at the back of your mind. You cheated. And it’s not the same. It doesn’t feel good. It feels shit.

I imagine that how it feels to be a City fan.

Except they still haven’t managed to win a single champions league trophy… despite all the cheating!!! muahahaha

[KeillRandor]

Billy Meredith

[Colossal_centre_back]

Pep right now…

[petergriffin2020]

@mattyhurst

I remember when Klopp came out and complained about those leaving early. Some people said it was wrong on Klopp however I think most of us agreed.

One of the things I’ve read a lot is how Klopp felt that the fans had a genuine role to play if he was going to take Liverpool to the top (I’ve admitted that when he took over I thought we’d be steady top 4 but not title-winners). Anyway, he remarked that admonishing the fans was a pretty bold statement, especially for a manager who had been in the job (one day) less than a month, but the fans responded well writ large to it, as you note.

The contrast with City being unable to fill their stadium is interesting. I really find it remarkable that they can’t find enough fans in their area to fill the stadium, particularly for a team that’s that good. Tell you what, as a young single guy with few familial obligations, if I lived within driving distance of Anfield (and not an ocean away) and had the resources to do so, I’d be there every weekend I could.

[Mascot]

Found on social media. I idea who to credit it to…

[Colossal_centre_back]

@petergriffin2020

The contrast with City being unable to fill their stadium is interesting

The reactions are different because he’s struck a nerve on the fact which they deep inside know is true but can’t do much about it. We, on the other hand, knew Klopp was asking us to be ourselves, which we had maybe forgotten because of not being in contention for long. Also, we consider the manager one of us, rather than asking him to just stick to the playing aspect on the pitch.

[El_Dorado]

Maybe if Pep dressed as if he were expecting company more people would show up.

[Kopstar]

On the exact same day, same time…

City
38,062 attendance
55,097 capacity
69% full

Liverpool
51,445 attendance
53,394 capacity
96.3% full

[Nobluff]

@WooltonRed

Kevin Parker was using every excuse he could think of for City’s poor attendance. Difficulty getting to a 8pm kick off on a Wednesday night, childminding issues, Coronavirus, affordability of tickets (ok, I get that one). I don’t know why they need a 55,000 capacity stadium.

They creating a 20k extension in 2023, so that takes them to 75k in order to be the biggest PL stadium. It’s all posturing in order to knock MU of their stadium perch.

I have seen the design, it’s quite nice. They taking 10k of the current seats and are adding these to the new design, so in other words 45k current design + 30k in the new underground seating design.