People dont have the money to pay £50 to watch a soccer match.
£50 is like €75.
And then you look at a fella like Rio Ferdinand(a centre back) looking for £100,000 + a week. Thats disgusting.
Jose Mourinho was asked about the low attendence in their match against Anderlecht and he said: "We have had two consecutive home matches and our supporters are not that rich. The opera, the theatre, the football are all expensive, but our crowd were fantastic all night."
Can you picture a skinhead Chelsea fan going to the opera?!
Having seen the boring Arsenal and Chelsea game a few weeks back and yesterday Liverpool vs Man U equally boring game, I fear the bubble may be burst. Both teams played 4-5-1: the stuff of dreams I don't think. You'd think Man U with such talented players could risk 4-4-2 but Fergie loves that 4-5-1 and it was awful and the Keane disaster really made a great ending to it
Probably would have preferred watching Millwall beat Wednesday at home
boro always seem to have poor crowds as far as I could tell from the tv....and this was before the current fashion for saying the premiership was in decline.....Originally Posted by drinkfeckarse
Ah no, the Watford 2-3 Sheff Utd. game was far better.Probably would have preferred watching Millwall beat Wednesday at home
Seriously though, I think English teams are even less capable in Europe this season than they have been for a long time. Well organised sides will put them all to the sword.
I'm off down to the Arsenal tonight for the Everton game. Not expecting anything much from this to be honest.
Have Boot Disk, will travel
Having scored 14 in their last 3 games against Everton, Arsenal must be confident of a few more although there might be a backlash from Everton after their disaster in Europe.
There has barely been a game worth talking about in the Premership so far this season. The Villa vs Spurs game looked good though from the highlights.
I watched part of one Match of the Day show this season and it bored me. Says a lot when even the highlights are boring. I think the top division in England went through something like this in the early 90's but there's so much more at stake now.
Have Boot Disk, will travel
Problem is, for the one or two match a season bods over here, £50 (€75) or £75 (€110) makes little difference on the overall price of the trip. They'll keep coughing up the money, buying the replica's etc. First mugs to be taken for the ride, they'll be the last ones to notice too.People dont have the money to pay £50 to watch a soccer match.
£50 is like €75.
And then you look at a fella like Rio Ferdinand(a centre back) looking for £100,000 + a week. Thats disgusting.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
think its goes in phases - until someone beats chelsea in a league game the premiership wont catch fire - but if they did it would be frontpage news and bigger than anything. More worrying stat is that the goals per game average has gone under 2.0 for the first time in decades.....and is now worse than Italian football!
also significant that Barca and Real Madrid lost at the w/e - la liga definitely more interesting from that point of view
Fergie's going senile, but his reputation is such that all the other managers copying the 4-5-1 rubbish he's serving up. The emperor has no clothes, but the rest are too afraid to say it..... It's actually quite sad - think of the breathtaking attacking of the 93-94 team....
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
I think there's been a definite shift in mentality among managers from winning more than the opposition to move up the table, to not lost as much as the opposition to stay in the premiership. There's less attacking play on this basis, with more focus on defensive work, getting a point from a draw is seen as more important than risking getting 3 for a win
someone was having a go at the eircom league either here or on boards.ie earlier this season. They reckoned the English PL was brilliant and no one knows who would win (a statement that is laughable now). THey reckoned it was the best league in the world because of the excitment, the fans, the end to end football.
Personally, I think its all hype by the english media and the English PL isnt all its cracked up to be. The real support has been taken out of games and the atmosphere is pretty dry. There isnt the same amount of fans turning up to the games, and those who do sit in silence most of the time. Man u and Liverpool was meant to be one of the best games of the season and it was a real bore. Who would have said that 10 years ago ??
Then there is the top few clubs who have only got bigger and bigger in the last decade. Chelsea have basically bought the league.
Whats the fun in paying over the odds for a ticket to see chelsea win the league ?
here is what the times makes of the best club games of the season
Beautiful game takes turn for the worse
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=13012
LIVERPOOL 0
MANCHESTER UTD 0
Matt Dickinson
OVERPRICED tickets, dwindling crowds, lone strikers and the title sewn up by mid-September; the beautiful game, Premiership style, is in trouble.
The hope was that yesterday's High Noon showdown at Anfield might provide a break from the negativity and, perhaps even, the spark to ignite a moribund season.
Oh, dear. There was more fun to be had reading the batting averages in Wisden than watching Manchester United, a club famed for its spirit of adventure, play out a scoreless bore with a Liverpool team whose four games in the Premiership (or six hours of football) have yielded a solitary goal.
Liverpool's predilection for drilling long balls at Peter Crouch drew derision from United fans, who were soon chanting "Wimbledon".
Most Liverpool supporters have taken to their 6ft 7in target-man, serenading Crouch with "He's big, he's red, his feet stick out the bed," but he needs an accomplice.
For all the Anfield faithful's implicit trust in Rafa Benitez, many Kopites must have secretly been wishing he had pushed harder to sign Michael Owen. Crouch's flick-ons would have been meat and drink, Port and large cigars for Owen.
This game encapsulated the 05/06 Premiership: cautious. The new obsession with playing one up, a tactic that brought the modest Greeks such rich reward at Euro 2004, has influenced managerial thinking in England. One manager's 4-5-1 is another's 4-3-3 and the set-up of Alex Ferguson's team was only marginally more adventurous than Benitez's.
It appeared that Roy Keane was banned from crossing the half-way line, while Paul Scholes and Alan Smith must have been told that they would be fined a week's wages for advancing beyond the ball.
Unstoppable in pre-season, Cristiano Ronaldo was comprehensively snuffed out by the eager tackling of Stephen Warnock. Even Wayne Rooney - or Wayniac Roonatic as he is known on many back pages - could not enliven this occasion, taking the instruction to calm down a little too far.
"Liverpool set their stall out to make it very difficult to break them down, but we had enough quality to do something about it," Ferguson said. "We lacked a cutting edge."
Steven Gerrard argued that Liverpool had to beware the breakaway threat contained in the flying feet of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. "You have to be a bit cautious," the England midfielder said.
Little caution coloured the usual spiky backdrop. Liverpool's prolific banner-writers had been hard at work, even starting their exhibition with a tribute to the club's European Cups, five large stars, hanging from the bridge where the M62 melts into Merseyside.
An American flag was waved on the Kop, poking fun at the Glazers' club with the message: "We've only got five stars."
Old Glory met new joy from Istanbul with a long official UEFA banner purloined from the Ataturk stadium. United fans were not to be outdone or outsung. "City of Culture, you're having a laugh," they chorused.
Culture? The closest yesterday came to art was in the paint-drying department. Or still life. Frustratingly for a packed house and tens of millions more watching on television around the world, the usual creative springs ran dry.
Rooney appeared more mindful of watching his Ps, Qs and Fs. Ronaldo was largely well policed by the excellent Stephen Warnock, the young Liverpool left-back who put in two marvellous sliding dispossessions of the United attacker.
Gerrard was typically industrious, almost scoring from a free kick aimed to the far post.
As well as Gerrard and Warnock, watching England head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson must have been impressed by United's emergency left-back, Kieran Richardson, who rarely looked over-awed on his first league start for the visitors.
At least Eriksson will have appreciated that Premiership rarity, nine Englishmen starting in the outfield 20.
Jamie Carragher put in one magnificent first-half tackle on Ruud van Nistelrooy, who still created one chance, lifted over Jose Reina but also over the bar.
"Ruud said the 'keeper was so far off his line he bwas tempted to chip him," Ferguson said.
United's manager added that he felt the heavy history of this fixture, the enmity between the supporters, weighed on the players, so fostering negative thoughts. "These games are too intense," Ferguson said.
"Maybe this game is too important. It puts players under pressure. It's early season and the players are very fit. They close each other down early."
In an attempt to engineer a breakthrough, Rooney pushed closer to Van Nistelrooy after the break, and only a great tackle from Gerrard denied the teenager a clear run on goal. Gerrard and then Luis Garcia let fly, but to no avail.
Liverpool were improving, Benitez stressed.
"We lost to United twice last season, whereas this season we drew and controlled the game," the Spaniard said.
"We can't waste time worrying about the gap [with Chelsea]."
Ferguson agreed. "It's far too early," he said. "Games like this will not be easy for Chelsea."
Games like this will not be easy to watch again on the video - or DVD. © The Times, London
Last edited by thejollyrodger; 19/09/2005 at 11:32 AM.
In fairness, it's hard to get an atmosphere going, when a showpiece game like the one above, kicks off at 12pm on a Sunday. Are Real-Barca, Inter-Milan, Roma-Lazio, Boca-River or Bohs-Rovers games on at 12pm on Sundays?? Of course, there will be no atmosphere at games when they're on at such a stupid time!
I see Joe Cole is bemoaning the price of Premiership tickets and saying that this is putting fans off! Oh really Joe, fancy a wage cut, then encouraging your team - mates to do the same, maybe then prices will come down. You have to wonder how stupid footballers think that fans are (or how stupid footballers are)
Where am I now? I'm over here,
I've got those empty pockets and I can't afford a beer.
is not surprised chelsea are getting low attendences , full price kids tickets full priced disabled tickets .
I think Chelsea are trying to become self-financing for the day when the Russian oil money dries up. Their wage bill must be enormous and they're asking the fans to finance that. Don't see it happening.
Stupid enough to keep paying the increases, up till this season anyway. United are one of the cheapest, but compare a Stretty ticket now compared to when it was standing, even allowing for inflation? 1991-1992 £6 (after going up from a fiver the year before). 2004-2005 £26 for a seat in the same spot.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
its hardly shocking the attendances are dropping.who really expected them to keep goin g up and up forever?i dont think the drop is that startling to be honest.but im glad to see people cop onto the ****e media-fuelled business that is the english premier league
In fairness mypost, this "showcase" and plenty others besides have a history of badness on the field, in the stands (particularly) and in and around the stadia. They're played at that time of the day in an attempt to prevent people getting tanked before kick-off and making a nuisance of themselves later in the day.
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
Since when?? I can't remember hooliganism inside a English stadium featuring Liverpool. Much worse happens on the continent, but their showcase games never kick-off at 12pm. When was the last time, there was violence inside/outside Anfield or OT, when both sides have met? 18 months ago, the sides met at 3pm on a Saturday. Why was our game moved yesterday?? Because of television, not alcohol.
I hope when the 24-hour drinking regulations come into force in the UK, these ghastly kick-off times will be phased out, as fans will be able to get p'eyed just as much at 9am, as at 9pm.
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