Brighton at Wembley - 13th Dec.

[Melspurnian]

42-45k seems about right.

Yeah I can imagine a lot of people have 2-3 hour journeys. You really can’t blame anyone for trying to beat that Wembley way queue on nights like last night.

Traveling on public transport in the winter at 10pm + is fucking dreadful. You're cold, tired, potentially pissed off and if you stick it out until the end stuck cramped up next to randoms for ages. When I go to AFL games (I'm a member) i generally leave 5-10 minutes early to beat the rush because the hour trip is already shit without having to worry about fitting on the train/tram and then not being able to move for a large portion on that trip. Do no begrudge anyone for leaving early at such times on a weekday.

 

[SouthStand Billy]

Except it's now also a form of entertainment for millionaires, none of whom want to lose their status as Premier League owners.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.. I’ve been watching us for years but the last few seasons have been some of the dullest football I’ve seen. ( not by us )
In the past you’d get the odd team stick everyone behind the ball, the likes of Wimbledon and Stoke, Bolton were famous for it, but now a good 70% of clubs come with those tactics.

This is exactly why everyone is going overboard with the type of football Man City are playing. That brand of entertaining football is a rarity so everyone is going overboard with the praise.

Probably my generation but I’d honestly rather watch us in the championship playing entertaining football than have to watch us playing dull boring football just to survive in the premier league.
As I said originally, if we started playing like West Ham, WBA, Brighton etc I’d stop going, it’s as simple as that.

 

[rusty]

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.. I’ve been watching us for years but the last few seasons have been some of the dullest football I’ve seen. ( not by us )
In the past you’d get the odd team stick everyone behind the ball, the likes of Wimbledon and Stoke, Bolton were famous for it, but now a good 70% of clubs come with those tactics.

This is exactly why everyone is going overboard with the type of football Man City are playing. That brand of entertaining football is a rarity so everyone is going overboard with the praise.

Probably my generation but I’d honestly rather watch us in the championship playing entertaining football than have to watch us playing dull boring football just to survive in the premier league.
As I said originally, if we started playing like West Ham, WBA, Brighton etc I’d stop going, it’s as simple as that.

these teams are playing the same way against us, Liverpool, man u, man city, gooners,
there are 2 problems the referees let them get away with thee time wasting tactic's, instead of warning them and booking players early to stop it
and the other one is we have to learn how to break these teams down, we have to have players & tactics that are capable of breaking teams down, Man City are doing it

 

[Henry Hotspur]

Morning

As distasteful as it may be (& is) we should’ve learnt to deal with teams coming and parking the bus by now..

To my mind, the two most effective ways of dealing with it are to a) overwhelm inferior teams from the off; or b) have ‘that’ player in your team who is capable of picking the lock of a 9 man defence.

Man City are doing a) very well right now. We did it on numerous occasions last season: Hull; Stoke; Watford; Bournemouth all at home spring to mind.

For b) we need an Eriksen; Dele or even a Lamela to step up and pull the strings. None of them are on song right now so we seem a little bereft of imagination/ideas..

There are other ways too. The Manure route of boring the opposition to tears and having your £1 billion team let Stoke have the majority of the ball - NOT the Spurs way...

And...getting your full backs in behind - not happening for us atm.

Brighton the other night was a particularly turgid affair. Mixed with the weather, low crowd etc it was a v forgettable affair. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a few too many of these displays this season. Saturday tea time in Manchester will be a completely different kettle of fish though....

 

[rusty]

I know Dele is off form (for some reason) at the moment, but could it be this season we have moved the ball too slowly from the back to the front is the reason we haven't played well this season ?

 

[Mrs Perryman]

Agree with the ref having to take action a lot quicker; against West Brom he booked their keeper at 80 mins. Just so frustrating. If we don't get an early goal or worse, go behind, they do it all the more and the officials let them. To me, it seems as if we don't have the same urgency / hunger / high energy press that we had last season. It may be that other teams know what to expect now or our attacking players are not in in the best of form.

 

[rwb2000]

I was thinking about this. There were absolutely stacks of empty seats in the lower levels, which presumably means that lots of season ticket holders didn’t actually attend? I went to the Stoke game at the weekend and as a Lilywhite member, the only seats available were up in the gods. However at the game itself there were hundreds of empty seats lower down. Are people just not bothering to attend the “lesser” games? Seems surprising since WHL was packed out for every single game last year. (As far as I am aware??)

I wasnt able to attend either the Stoke game or the Brighton game. I asked the member office how to sell on the ticket exchange and the guy confirmed that it only appears on the ticketing site when the game is sold out.
Hate to say it, but at least StubHub was available once tickets went on general sale.

This arrangement is WORSE than StubHub.

In the end it got to the day of the game in both cases and I ended u giving the tickets away to a work mate who is a ManU supporter but only "lives round the corner"
:eriksenlol:

 

[Fattynomates]

I wasnt able to attend either the Stoke game or the Brighton game. I asked the member office how to sell on the ticket exchange and the guy confirmed that it only appears on the ticketing site when the game is sold out.
Hate to say it, but at least StubHub was available once tickets went on general sale.

This arrangement is WORSE than StubHub.

In the end it got to the day of the game in both cases and I ended u giving the tickets away to a work mate who is a ManU supporter but only "lives round the corner"
:eriksenlol:

The good thing about there being no stub hub is that genuine new fans get to own a season ticket this season, if they kept stub hub you would have just have had more touts buying season tickets, selling the tickets on stub hub and then next season having the same luxury at the NWHL where tickets will be more in demand, and then when a genuine fan wants a season ticket he has to wait years on the waiting list, at least this way pretty much anyone on the waiting list got the chance to become a season ticket holder and is guaranteed one at the new stadium, I think apart from the bigger games this season Wembley will always be a write off atmosphere wise, the place just isn't designed for crowds of 40-50k, the only time it's felt good there for me has been the Liverpool, Dortmund and Madrid games.

 

[alexwooty]

I cannot wait to quit Wembley and get back home. Getting to the place is now getting downright dangerous. It is easier for me to go to Marylebone but they run two trains an hour before the game, 10 and 40 minutes past the hour. You can imagine working out which one to get to see the Kick Off.
On Saturday they had two coaches, last night they had four. The trains look like Hillsborough, they are that dangerously overcrowded. Talking to their staff is like talking to a robot. They are fucking useless.

I'm hobbling around on crutches at the moment so decided to use the Marylebone-Wembley Stadium route to minimise the walking distance. Would seem like a good idea, right?

On the way there, missed a train by a couple of minutes. Saw that the next one was 30 minutes later, so decided to stay on the Bakerloo line and drag myself there painfully from Wembley Central instead. Then after the game, asked the station staff how I could get down to the platform without having to hop down the stairs amongst the scramble and probably end up flat on my face. They didn't have a fucking clue, after conferring a bit they told me to go to use the lift at the end of the West Ruislip queue. Hopped over to it, to find that it's "closed on event days". Closed on fucking event days, when it would be most needed! What sort of brilliant fucking idea is that? Then back to the main road, round a corner, through a barely-visible security gate, along a long winding route going behind some shops and eventually onto the platform just in time to see the train on it pull away. Next scheduled train cancelled. 15 minute wait on a freezing platform for the next one. Never again.

 

[Airfixx]

I wasnt able to attend either the Stoke game or the Brighton game. I asked the member office how to sell on the ticket exchange and the guy confirmed that it only appears on the ticketing site when the game is sold out.
Hate to say it, but at least StubHub was available once tickets went on general sale.

This arrangement is WORSE than StubHub.

In the end it got to the day of the game in both cases and I ended u giving the tickets away to a work mate who is a ManU supporter but only "lives round the corner"
:eriksenlol:

I sympathise, but FUCK STUBHUB...

...Even if in your case it is only for the greater good.

 

[Smogz]

I was sat next to a Brighton fan (nice fella), he was bored shitless, after our first goal he beat me to it by saying "at least we might have a game now". He was somewhat embarrassed, whilst he can see the reason for pragmatism, as a fan he said these games have already been written off as a non result, all he wanted was to see his side giving it a good go against a top side, it's what they have all be dreaming about for for years whilst in Championship, then they get to watch that, it's not living the dream.

What I hated last night was having to endure Spurs fans booing Winks, screaming at him to "pass forward", with every sideways and backwards pass there was genuine anger. I find this fucking astonishing and again these cunts out themselves as knowing fuck all about football. Winks didn't have a great game, in the first half he made a number of poor passes (most of them forward passes that were intercepted or just poor) BUT he was playing a far, far deeper role last night, he was the deepest lying midfielder, his role was to circulate the ball, help move it across the pitch and to draw out Brighton, he did exactly this. Looked over to the touchline after another volley of abuse from our fans following a backwards pass and Poch was going mental on the touchline, waiving his arms at Spurs fans behind him urging them to get behind him, I've never seen him do this, 5-10 mins latter he took him off probably to protect him from our own fans, WHAT ABSOLUTE FUCKING CUNTS!! When a team parks the bus the option to pass forward almost disappears, don't boo your team or players boo the team parking the bus, still fuming.

Horrible game to watch, but exactly what I was expecting, we have many more of these to come. It's not our fault, it's the oppo, time fans started to take their frustration out on the team that parks the bus rather than their own side that's trying all sorts brake down these teams.

Rose is still a long, long, long way off, not complaining as he's been out for a long time but mentioning as all I see is people wanting him to start ahead of Davies, no chance at the moment Davies is miles better. (I would like to see Aurier over Tripps mind). Another very solid game from Dier, great to see Aurier taking on the oppo, it really is a massive difference and I can now see the reasoning from Poch to play both him and Rose against side(s) we expect that will park the bus, as opposed to playing them against a rival or a side that will want to take us on. Poch mentioned that this initial spell of festive period he will get time to work on the new recruits, that bodes well for Aurier and hopefully Poch can coach the defensive side of the game, specifically selling himself short when a ball is played to his oppo, he gets rolled far to easily but it is the only problem to his game I'm guessing but think he's told to be aggressive but needs to make better decisions when to drop and when to challenge.

Great to see Lamella start, thought he was good in the first half but struggled to get on the ball in 2nd, hard to tell if this was him loosing fitness or just team dynamic as a whole. Just having him available adds to our options, be that have Dele on the bench or visa versa, when you can bring on Dembele, Dele or Davies from the bench it's all positive.

Completely deserved 3 points.

Must say that I was one of the persons muttering about Winks lack of going for the creative alternative. Reading your post made me realize that I know fuck all about football and that I'm am idiot. To remind me of this everyday from now on I have decided to remove my left ballstone. That should teach me.

 

[Rocket]

I sympathise, but FUCK STUBHUB...

...Even if in your case it is only for the greater good.

I agree, fuck Stubhub (and all of their ilk), however the club is definitely missing a trick by restricting Lilywhite members to buying in level 5. In doing so they leave loads of empty seats in the lower level where STH's can't offload their tickets.
Not only does it harm the atmosphere but it also looks awful on the TV camera's. They need to find an answer to this in my opinion. It's a farcical situation.

 

[Airfixx]

I agree, fuck Stubhub (and all of their ilk), however the club is definitely missing a trick by restricting Lilywhite members to buying in level 5. In doing so they leave loads of empty seats in the lower level where STH's can't offload their tickets.
Not only does it harm the atmosphere but it also looks awful on the TV camera's. They need to find an answer to this in my opinion. It's a farcical situation.

It isn't the best, but I reckon this is just another symptom of the 'unknown' factor in spending the year at Wembley....

By the time all the creases get ironed our we're likely to have moved back to WHL.

 

[Bagelboy]

If hands to the head is a sending off offence, deliberate or not, and Sanchez got a straight red anyone else else think knockaert shouldn’t have been sent off for deliberately doing Winks in the back of the head. Used two hands to push him from behind, deliberately, in the back of the head. Intent, hands, head. Red card imo. Nothing different from Sanchez or leading with the forearm jumping.
Knockaert got a free kick.

 

[Airfixx]

If hands to the head isn’t a sending off offence, deliberate or not, if Sanchez got a straight red anyone else else think knockaert shouldn’t have been sent off for deliberately doing Winks in the back of the head. Used two hands to push him from behind, deliberately in the back of the head.
Knockaert got a free kick.

Refereeing in our recent games has been an absolute mess...

I fear the worst with regards to tomorrow's game and the subconscious desire to preserve the 'City: A Gift To Football' narrative (also previously see 'Leicester's Fairytale').

As it is we've had some stinking decisions against City in the not too distant past (dodgy reds leading to a few drubbings + Balotelli trying to mash up Parker's skull)...

 

[Deggsy56]

Martial should've been carded midweek before he crossed for the Mancs goal. Deliberate push (defender held his face). Ignored by ref. Mancs get the decisions again !

 

[Arthur Wensleydale]

I'm hobbling around on crutches at the moment so decided to use the Marylebone-Wembley Stadium route to minimise the walking distance. Would seem like a good idea, right?

On the way there, missed a train by a couple of minutes. Saw that the next one was 30 minutes later, so decided to stay on the Bakerloo line and drag myself there painfully from Wembley Central instead. Then after the game, asked the station staff how I could get down to the platform without having to hop down the stairs amongst the scramble and probably end up flat on my face. They didn't have a fucking clue, after conferring a bit they told me to go to use the lift at the end of the West Ruislip queue. Hopped over to it, to find that it's "closed on event days". Closed on fucking event days, when it would be most needed! What sort of brilliant fucking idea is that? Then back to the main road, round a corner, through a barely-visible security gate, along a long winding route going behind some shops and event
Eventually onto the platform just in time to see the train on it pull away. Next scheduled train cancelled. 15 minute wait on a freezing platform for the next one. Never again.

They are running the thing on the cheap and are heading for another serious incident. None of their staff have any interest in the job.

 

[scott]

I'm hobbling around on crutches at the moment so decided to use the Marylebone-Wembley Stadium route to minimise the walking distance. Would seem like a good idea, right?

On the way there, missed a train by a couple of minutes. Saw that the next one was 30 minutes later, so decided to stay on the Bakerloo line and drag myself there painfully from Wembley Central instead. Then after the game, asked the station staff how I could get down to the platform without having to hop down the stairs amongst the scramble and probably end up flat on my face. They didn't have a fucking clue, after conferring a bit they told me to go to use the lift at the end of the West Ruislip queue. Hopped over to it, to find that it's "closed on event days". Closed on fucking event days, when it would be most needed! What sort of brilliant fucking idea is that? Then back to the main road, round a corner, through a barely-visible security gate, along a long winding route going behind some shops and eventually onto the platform just in time to see the train on it pull away. Next scheduled train cancelled. 15 minute wait on a freezing platform for the next one. Never again.

British transport in all its glory.

 

[scott]

Refereeing in our recent games has been an absolute mess...

I fear the worst with regards to tomorrow's game and the subconscious desire to preserve the 'City: A Gift To Football' narrative (also previously see 'Leicester's Fairytale').

As it is we've had some stinking decisions against City in the not too distant past (dodgy reds leading to a few drubbings + Balotelli trying to mash up Parker's skull)...

We got some help last season there though. Walker pushing sterling. Clear red & pen.

 

[Fattynomates]

We got some help last season there though. Walker pushing sterling. Clear red & pen.

Here is to hoping he does the same today, and gets a red, and gives away a pen! ochlol: