Interpolic

Weirdly I've become quite a bit more attached to him seeing him in the middle. I really don't like him much on the left anymore. That said if it was good money and meant keeping Sandro/Tino I'd be tempted, still.

Imagine being in the CL quarter finals by 8pm on a Wednesday

Also shows up their "process was the same as previous fixtures" line as a total lie. Changing the proportion on ballot so hugely and with no warning is a huge change.

82% allocated to ballot without consultation or explanation. Appreciate the transparency now but it would have been better beforehand. Was almost a waste of time logging in for general sale, when usually that's your best chance.

Yep 2 points behind Arsenal with them and Everton to play. Did alright vs Arsenal and probably deserved a draw. I say outside chance because a win at the Emirates was always a tough ask.

There was nowt fortunate at all about us qualifying for the CL last year, without that wobble at home to Everton last game we'd have finished 4th. We had an outside chance of finishing 2nd with 2 games left.

We're only allowed the 8th highest wage bill in the league but we must finish top 5 every year. Make it make sense.

I'm all for them just touching up the current badge, that one posted a few years ago that some designer had done looked much sharper.

Keep him til the day he's happy to move upstairs and then we can call him Chairman Howe.

Determined not to get drawn into this today but on no planet would I consider using whatever tools you have to get a ticket a moral issue.

Howe's comments when Wissa signed: "Yoane is a player who we have admired for some time and we're delighted to have him on board. "He brings proven Premier League quality, demonstrated not only by his goalscoring output but also the crucial work he does for the team. "Yoane's style of play will excite our supporters and complement our style of play - he has pace, power and an excellent work rate. He immediately makes us stronger." Having not watched Brentford that intently I was expecting expecting a bit of a pressing machine. His best game for us was PSV (he was my motm) and he was an absolute nuisance, albeit against naive opposition. Hopefully it clicks tor him soon because his recent outings suggest lack of form, fitness, confidence. He must be significantly better than he has been.

astonishing, this

Probably aye, I can never remember what the craic is with that but always assumed it would involve consultation with the Football League and maybe even the government. Maybe not though.

Mixed feelings as I work for Sky and this would surely be the end of it or at least lead to huge downsizing. But I'm not oblivious to the faults of Sky either. I do think this is coming in the next 5-10 years but similar to the HBO Max stuff recently, Sky will want to continue working with them and not lose the connection entirely. So perhaps what ends up happening is Sky builds the technology, facilitates it and they split the revenue. Also build it into their Sky packages, similar to how you can now pay a lesser amount for access to a few streaming platforms. The biggest hurdle seems the 3pm blackout but there seems enough customer appetite now for that not to be much of an obstacle imo.

I'd say we are beyond the tipping point on ticketing already tbh. Member ticket prices are already obscene, the fact that normal members are now being squeezed out for more and more of these daft £700 packages even more so. If this is the cost of getting a bit higher up the league I'd rather we didn't pay it. The fact the club are doing it with zero consultation or transparency and fans (usually ones with their own season tickets already assured) are queuing up to justify it is just entirely depressing.

People weren't kicking off at not getting tickets which is what you said. They'd have to be completely stupid to think it would be a piece of piss getting tickets for a game against Sunderland. They were kicking off at there seemingly being an obscene amount fewer available. Big difference and completely justified criticism. If we're speculating that like 10k tickets have been given to corporate and sponsors here then that is completely unacceptable imo. Fine to leave it there, aye.

Mate, you said members were using the ridiculous experience on Monday as an excuse to have a whinge about ticketing. Ain't a chance I'm not snapping back at that. It was dismissive and condescending as I said. If there are 15k "spare" tickets then something is going very, very wrong when a queue number of <1000 isn't getting a sniff of a ticket, when that is meant to be half the member allocation. To say that members kicking off at that are just looking for an excuse to have a moan is confrontational as fuck, whether you realise it or not.

Any thoughts on those who were 700 or 800 in the member general sale queue only to see there were no tickets left, or are you just here to be dismissive and condescending towards members again?

He and we have looked far better with him playing there, I'm not understanding why pundits and even fans are obsessed with finding a problem with it.

It's not like

Find this interesting. As Bobby says we have around 15k non-ST seats available each game. As a fanbase are we saying that in the name of PSR we're happy with the club taking more and more of these away from normal fans and also not being transparent about it? Because I think that stinks to high heaven personally. It doesn't matter to a STH because your seat is always guaranteed, but members logged in yesterday and had queue positions of 400-800 and didn't get a sniff of a ticket. Again that stinks.

It's actually pretty fucking patronising gaslighting from the club. Palming people off by saying a game against Sunderland is in demand. No shit. There was clearly something else going on this morning. Arseholes. This is why the resentment is building re ticketing.

such a bullshit response and ridiculous they ignored your other questions. The game being in demand means nothing if it's not explained why normally good queue numbers were nowhere near getting tickets.

Might as well add to this thread as well, had a queue number of 800-odd, got in at 10.07 and nowt left. Absolute disgrace that this morning.