AyeDubbleYoo

Well yeah, but I wanted to see the stadium and two class teams. It’s a one-off.

Aye, it was through their reselling platform.

Aye, I went Liverpool Spurs and it was something like £125. Some added fees or something.

Have they apologised yet?

Think this is important to remember. The easiest thing for the club would have been to keep the same queue as last year. Although this option is a disaster, it has only come about through a desire to make things fairer.

The club's only chance now is to come out and say "we wanted to let you choose seats, but our website is too shite because Mike Ashley never invested in it. We will fix it as soon as we can". If that's not the case, and they actually thought this was the best option, then we really need to be worried.

The people who want the expensive seats will be just as angry I guess, since now they can't pay for a nicer seat even if they wanted to.

Even just not being able to regularly go to the same section will confuse people a lot. Even if it's not the loudest section of the ground, you get comfortable with what noise you can make and when. Working it out every week will put a lot of people off.

I would guess the main problem is how archaic our website is.

It’s feasible if you had a good enough system. I guess they’re worried about having unsold seats as affordable/desirable ones run out. But that will happen anyway if people have to get refunds on tickets they’ve been randomly allocated and can’t afford. In a way it’s worse for the people who want the £74 seats. Presumably they’ll lose interest in the experience quite quickly if they can’t guarantee a luxury seat.

I do think they’ll fix it at some point, but if it was a stopgap they should have released a statement saying so.

This is the absolutely bare minimum. FWIW they probably know that but weren’t competent enough to get the system ready for this season.

It’s not the ballot that’s the issue, it’s the not being able to choose area or price.

Yes, the Saudi state has infinite wealth which it is prepared to use to fill the league with players from abroad. It’s not really to do with individual clubs.

I think that’s already the rule, they just can’t get people to follow it.

I guess the model is individual traders selling on the platform, like Etsy. So if one seller gets shut down another just pops up. FWIW Etsy is also making a fortune off traders selling products branded with things they don’t have the trademark for. Star Wars for example. Not counterfeit goods but on the spectrum.

That’s what I was saying earlier, it should be clear what time counts as ‘wasted’. Otherwise it’s way too random.

The only thing I could think would be if they were cannibalising their own sales. Like if they were making shirts for Castore and also selling fakes, Castore might object. But maybe a lot of the manufacturing has been moved to other countries now anyway. In the UK I can see packages being stopped but I’m not sure of what offence a buyer is committing.

Thought it was China as well. Assume the government of China don’t care.

Of course it is, but they’re anonymous and based in China, so it’s almost impossible for anyone to stop them.

What will happen with Cancelo? Just realised he’s still owned by Man City.

The timing is the worst thing I think, he'd have been the most useful since the Br*ce days next season.

If they’re going to add more time on then it needs to be absolutely clear what is included. For example, goal keepers taking ages to take a goal kick. Presumably they haven’t had wasted time if they haven’t been booked, therefore that time shouldn’t be added on? Seems like lots of stuff that has always been a normal part of football might end up being considered ‘added time’.

I just think we could easily lose the first three games quite comfortably.

Was it more exciting when punditry was just about running more and trying harder?