Agree that it was a very poor attendance. I predicted low 30 ' s on here and despite the "dead rubber" feel to it I expected more.To be fair they are now top club but with a mid tier club fan base . Nothing wrong with that, but considering it was Pep's first home CL game, barely 17,000 is shocking.
Source, today's M.E.N.
Manchester City under Pep Guardiola | Pep on City v Liverpool ref: "He likes to be special"
- Thread starter Adisa
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The 'we're not really here' chant has nothing to do with digs at City's attendance, has been sung for years at City.
This... banter is just banter. Some people find banter funny when its about other clubs but get offended when its given back about their own. Its just a friendly stick to beat each other with.
To be fair they are now top club but with a mid tier club fan base . Nothing wrong with that, but considering it was Pep's first home CL game, barely 17,000 is shocking.
Source, today's M.E.N.
Not sure if you seriously believe that but that would mean the ground was barely 30% full. Here's the Guardian match report below - scroll down and look at the pics of the crowd in the background. The MEN figure is either a typo or someone is having a laugh. I seem to remember they printed a ridiculously low barely believable crowd figure for one of United's games last season:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...eaua-bucharest-champions-league-play-off-live
Yeah the attendance is listed at 40,064 on here: http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/ucl/2017/2019272_fr.pdf
Not sure if you seriously believe that but that would mean the ground was barely 30% full. Here's the Guardian match report below - scroll down and look at the pics of the crowd in the background. The MEN figure is either a typo or someone is having a laugh. I seem to remember they printed a ridiculously low barely believable crowd figure for one of United's games last season:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...eaua-bucharest-champions-league-play-off-live
That banner was up there for years mate and long before that match. "We're not really here" is a legendary chant amongst City fans and whilst there are varying stories as to when and where it was born, it's generally accepted that the Prestwich and Whitefield Blues penned it on a pre-season tour of Ireland in 1996 as an ode to a recently departed friend. Others claim that they heard the chant earlier than that and that's possible but I guess it would've been only in small pockets - and probably just the shortened version - because as someone who was attending most away matches 20 years ago the first time I heard it was when Lincoln dicked us 4-1 in a League Cup tie at Sincil Bank in September 1996.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson which I'm sure you found incredibly fascinating lol - I will at least concede that the banner did backfire on us when it was photographed at that game
I said earlier on the other thread that UEFA had it as 40,060 so I did us out of 4 fans! Anyway, I might indulge in a bit of planking across the seats at future City games in order to make the ground look more full
Not sure if you seriously believe that but that would mean the ground was barely 30% full. Here's the Guardian match report below - scroll down and look at the pics of the crowd in the background. The MEN figure is either a typo or someone is having a laugh. I seem to remember they printed a ridiculously low barely believable crowd figure for one of United's games last season:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...eaua-bucharest-champions-league-play-off-live
Yeah I was at the game, no chance there were only 17,000 there. Official figure of 40,064 is also questionable. I'd have said it was around 32,000.
Well 40,064 will be tickets sold/issued rather than actual turnstile clicks which is how most clubs report their attendances. Actual bums on seats I'd have had as around 37,000-38,000 with a couple of thousand or so on the cup scheme not turning up:
Approx figures:
Capacity - 55,000
Capacity for CL games with seats being blocked off for advertising hoardings, etc - 53,500
South Stand 3rd tier closed - minus 6000
West Stand 3rd tier initially closed - minus 5500. But then was opened up for sale the day before and probably about 800-1000 fans in there.
East Stand 3rd tier full - 5500
1st and 2nd tiers all around the ground hold about 36,500. Minus about 1200 or so as the away end was probably just under half full and minus a few hundred more for segregation but pretty much the rest of the 1st and 2nd tiers were sold out (otherwise they wouldn't have started selling tickets for the 3rd tier of the West Stand 24 hours earlier) apart from empties mainly in the 2nd tier corporate sections and you're looking at a crowd in the region of 40,000-ish in terms of tickets sold/issued. It didn't look like there were 8000 less than that to me but there were some non-attending ticket holders of course. Funnily enough, the family stand looked more full than it does for some sold out league games!
Oh Guardiola
Pep is famous for going overboard with praise.
I didn't realise how much Pep had spend until I saw there signings on sky sports. Where is the outrage from the media about his spending?
They've spent about 25m more than us. The Pogba signing gives an illusion we are the biggest spenders.
Oh Guardiola
To be fair the quote has been totally stripped of its context there. He was referring to Kolarov's performances in two specific games (Sunderland and Steaua) where he was good, albeit not really tested, and he was speaking only about left-footed defenders too.
Wonder what this is about now..
Pep Guardiola 'more arrogant' than Jose Mourinho - Mircea Lucescu
http://www.espn.in/football/english...re-arrogant-than-jose-mourinho-mircea-lucescu
http://www.espn.in/football/english...re-arrogant-than-jose-mourinho-mircea-lucescu
I'd say it was about Toure starting to realise he aint kicking a ball again until he apologizes. And even then.
Toure recalled with 2 goals for them. Maybe Mourinho should give BFS a chance?
So, is Yaya in their CL squad?
And if not, will he be playing regular PL minutes do you reckon?
I ask for FF reasons - would love to trade KDB out for him, but don't wanna do it unless he's gonna play.
And if not, will he be playing regular PL minutes do you reckon?
I ask for FF reasons - would love to trade KDB out for him, but don't wanna do it unless he's gonna play.
i don't think so.
Yaya is not in CL squad and Pep has been quizzed in the presser as to whether he'll be included for the knockout stages (should we qualify).
It would take some serious juggling to get him in for latter stages as allowable numbers are lower than in PL.
Serious question. How are they any different from Pellegrini's City?
Defend better, press more, move the ball quicker. A game like today is the perfect example, under Pellers going a goal down to Burnley and being on the back foot for the opening 20 minutes would have been a loss. The way we responded and dominated 2nd half till the last 10 minutes is exactly whats different. No getting the heads down, no one strolling about not being arsed in midfield, defenders throwing themselves in front of things. Its like a completely new team even when the chips are down.
Come back here pls
Time to change FCBarca's nick.
You what!?
We are far less boring to watch I know that much. Irrespective of the actual football though, the biggest difference for me is the effort the players now put in. Last year was pathetic and now they're playing for the manager again.
They can't defend so bad, with 12 goals allowed. Joint second best defense.
And it's defensive mistakes that's cost them regularly, their distinct lack of clean sheets is well known and it's what is holding them back.
Sort of misleading. Are they defending well or do they just dominate possession most matches and not concede many because of that?
City are by far the most boring team to watch out of the current top 4.
It's not holding them back very far, when I look at the table.
Rather irrelevant for the PL, if they continue doing as they do, it's well enough so far. Different story in the CL, where domination over the opponent is not as easy.
That gif would be so gold on reddit.
Well we're never going to play the 442 hammer it into the box from the flanks under Pep.
That's fine by me.
In one.
The system isn't ready for full usage yet and far too many members of the squad aren't good enough for what Pep's demanding, but we're a harder nut to crack these days. We've lost one game this season when we've kept 11 men on the pitch for 90 minutes (Spurs away*) and now we're starting to develop the ability to look within ourselves during a tough game and find a goal from somewhere. It's something all the best teams have had down the years and it'll keep us in touch with Chelsea and Liverpool over the busy winter period.
* - We lost the League Cup derby 1-0 but considering we played a mixture of youth players and reserves because it was relatively low priority it's not worth counting towards this argument.
With that squad so they should be right up there. You'll be a fool to think this should be their limit though, they have plenty of room for improvement, I'll tell you now that's not in attack. Actually watch them play, it's obvious.
Is that what the other top three do?
They don't keep clean sheets, if they only conceded 38 goals this season but it's a goal a game due to a Stones feck up, is it a good defence?
2 goals needed to win every game is a huge disadvantage.