Playing Devil's advocate but is this what people want from the 'General Sport' forum but in particular the threads on rival teams?
I think it's a bit different for different teams. I think the Everton thread is perfect. They are never going to be a threat to us but as a rival they provide us with plenty of genuine entertainment. There's no need for any sort of more serious discussion.
The City and Spurs threads for example. Are they just for 'bantz'? To throw stones at their supporter base? What happens if City come back strong next season? Does the thread just stay dormant until we have the upper hand on them again?
Just trying to get a feel for what this, and other threads, are aimed at? Feel they are bit muddled at the moment between people who want some semi serious discussion about how City play and are funded, people who want to pull comments from rival forum and basically people who want to laugh at the size of their crowd?
Put it simply I'm not that bothered by City and Spurs except that they have been or are rivals for trophies at the moment. Nothing more and nothing less. There is no proper traditional rivalry with them and nothing that compares to Everton/United. For me the City stuff feels a little bit like Chelsea circa 2005-2010. A team we had a strong rivalry with when competing for CL but now they are just like any other team. City will eventually be like that to us too.
By the way, has anyone mentioned that City struggle to sell out at times. Probably because of their small supporter base and the economic pressures on working class people (and City's supporter base will predominantly be working class people from Manchester) being able to afford to go to lots of games.
People should have no issue constantly reminding man city that they are, and always will be, a small club.
I think you're missing the point in all this though. Stepping back from the PR spin coming out from Abu Dhabi about the 'poor working class in manchester' for a minute. The reason why it's being highlighted, is to do with the continual lies coming from Abu Dhabi on man city's attendance. They have overinflated their attendances by an average of 7,500 per game, around 10,000 under capacity
every game.
Granted these figures are from a couple of seasons ago. With the gloryhunters and social media influencers leaving like rats from a sinking ship, the numbers might be even greater.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45158878Most teams in the Premier League choose to publicise the number of tickets sold for a game rather than the number of people actually in the stadium. That means they include season ticket holders who don't attend, and complimentary tickets that are not used.
They are not breaking any rules by choosing this method.
Why do fans stay away?
...But that cannot be said of Manchester City, who won the Premier League by a record margin last season and, based on 12 games obtained by BBC Sport, still showed an average discrepancy of 7,482.
The club, which offers some of the cheapest season tickets in the league and has had record sales for 2018-19, said they were "aware that a percentage of fans are unable to attend matches on occasion, due to a variety of factors often related to individual circumstance".
The solution to all this by Abu Dhabi is not to decrease prices even further, or to work on some innovative plan to get more people through the gates, but instead to
add an addition 8,000 seats.
https://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2018/11/19/manchester-city-eyes-etihad-stadium-expansion/Manchester City is reportedly considering expanding the capacity of the Etihad Stadium by approximately 8,000 to 63,000.
This isn't a case of a club reporting 97% attendance and trying to work out how to get those additional 3% to go to the game. It's a club reporting 97% capacity when it's only 83%.
The empty seats are only a small part of the shady management of the club by Abu Dhabi. Tiny really. But it is one of the most visible.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-and-the-fight-against-financial-fairplay-a-1236347.htmlHe said some clubs were secretly opposed to FFP, but that they were afraid to say so openly. Which made things more difficult. "We will need to fight this," Soriano wrote in his memo, "and do it in a way that is not visible, or we will be pointed out as the global enemies of football."
Behind closed doors, they began looking for "creative solutions" to circumvent the rules, resulting in the launch of a secret project with the rather military-esque name "Project Longbow." In explaining the name, the club's chief legal adviser, Simon Cliff, noted in an internal email that the longbow was "the weapon the English used to beat the French at Crecy and Agincourt."
Why are people piling on man city right now people ask?
Why not, they're all c*nts. They cost us two league titles in the past 6 years due to their deceit. Plus, how else are we going to keep ourselves entertained between now and February 15th? Kick them while they're down I say.
