Shadow Puppets

They looked fucking ecstatic a week ago.

Yes, get fucked. We’ve lost two games in a week, poor, tired performances. But why wouldn’t he be able to turn it around? He’s been nothing short of exceptional since taking over, and the last two matches have significant mitigating factors. errr, last season’s Klopp says hi!

One week ago we beat Chelsea, Man Utd, and were one minute away from winning in Paris. ”doesn’t look good”… get fucked.

Very poor in possession, yet still could (and probably should) have scored two.

Yes, he does

Yep, it's sold out with a waitlist. Two years ago it was relatively easy to get a box I believe.

Yeah, that’s what I’m referring to with regards to Directors box clients. Bob Moncur suite guests sit in Directors Box, and there are only around 30 hospitality contracts in that suite.

Possibly... don't know.

I agree that the communication is poor. But I’m telling you 1000% factually (from multiple people working the corporate team) that 7% went to corporate for Luton… the same as every other PL game. As I say, I missed out too. If 450 tickets had gone to corporate I’d be sat here now with 2 tickets, but I’m not. For a start… - when you apply in the hospitality ballot you can apply for 2 tickets only for PL games. Occasionally it goes to 4 tickets if it’s a Carabao Cup game (I had four for the Man Utd game). But PL, max of 2. - divide 450 by 2 = 225 - I’d be surprised if NUFC even have 225 hospitality contracts, let alone 225 hospitality contracts that entered the Luton ballot. Not a chance. - There are only 100 executive boxes. Barracks (and equivalent) clients aren’t classed as hospitality, so I believe they can’t access the hospitality ballot. Pretty sure it’s just for boxes and directors box clients. All of this could be put to bed with one simple news article.

Maybe it isn’t a problem at some games, but it certainly caused a big chew on the other night, primarily because of their attitude. There wasn’t room to just sit/stand where you want in that Paris away end, and why should other people have to move to worse seats / split their party to accommodate a bunch of arseholes?

Agreed. All I’m saying is, the problem, whatever it may be, is not stemming from the hospitality side of things. As I say, they are pushing for transparency on it too.

Maybe some rogue stewards. Wasn’t my experience at all.

Seems like a really weird, self entitled, attitude to have to be honest. “I’m going to sit/stand wherever I want”. If that attitude is replicated far and wide, then all you’re doing is pissing off other fans who want to sit/stand with their mates where they paid to sit. And what you’re describing is probably the reason for the bother in Dortmund. People going into the lower standing tier, when they didn’t have a ticket in there, causing a crush / ruckus.

Why? I genuinely don’t understand that attitude like. I’ve been to around 40 away games over the years, either on my old season ticket or via hospitality ballots, and Tuesday night was the only time we’ve ever been told to sit somewhere else. Same experience for our friends who go to 5+ away games a year. They’ve never experienced that. Seems to me that a subsection of away fans, because they’ve been going for a long time, think they run their own rules for the away end.

I have no idea, other than that 75 tickets went to hospitality clients. I can verify that, with 1000% certainty…. Partly because of my conversations with the hospitality team who I know well… and partly because I entered the hospitality ballot and didn’t get one (I get them almost every time I enter that ballot, but didn’t for Luton specifically because their allocation was so small.). No idea where the others went ?‍♂️ Well I can only go on my own experience, and EVERYONE (20-30 people in the immediate vicinity) was telling this family to sit in their own seats… everyone was kicking off at them, so as far as I can tell we were well within our right. I mean it’s just common sense isn’t it, as well… if you just sit where you feel like sitting, people who travelled together / paid to sit together, will end up getting split up. They are pushing for transparency on it ?

The people claiming stuff about Luton are, again, making it up. Plucking it out of their arse to suit whatever it is they’re angry about. I was speaking with our hospitality rep today about that exact thing (literally 5 hours ago at Paris airport) and they reiterated, 100%, that a maximum of 7% goes to hospitality for ALL PL games. He specifically cited the Luton game as an example of how angry he gets seeing people make stuff up about it. And no, the empty seats are unlikely to be because of corporate people. They sell out their small allocation each time, and there’s no benefit to a corporate client to buy the ticket and not show up (they don’t earn loyalty points on them so why buy and not show?). It’s much more likely, in my opinion, that due to the new rules about who you can and can’t pass your tickets onto, that season ticket holders might be buying tickets to continue building loyalty, but perhaps not actually always using them. It really does just need need someone to post a proper breakdown of how it works so people can stop banging on about it.

A long story about last night… We arrived an hour before kick off to find a couple of older blokes (60+) in our seats, with his wife and mate in the seats directly in front. We explained that they were our seats and was met with “you can sit anywhere you want at European games mate”. I knew that was bollocks, having been to all the away games this time, and a couple in the Pardew European run. Never come across that before. However, we went with it and sat in the seats next to him. As you’d guess, then people came and told us to get out of their seats. He then told them to sit somewhere else as well etc. This went on another couple of times. Eventually we got forcefully told (rightly) to sit in our correct seats, so we had to tell these blokes to move. We were met with the following: - he questioned how many loyalty points we had, and other people on our row, had. - he bragged that he had 550 so he can “sit where he fucking wants”. - when the lad next to us mentioned that he got his via hospitality, as we did, (which is a perfectly legitimate way to get tickets), he kicked off. “Of course. Fucking hospitality wankers… plastic prawn sandwich wankers” - then his wife (absolute bellend) started verbally abusing us, telling us to fuck off… calling us plastic fans (despite me having a season ticket for 25 years, building around 200 loyalty points, before managing a company who own a box, therefore forgoing my loyalty points and ability to earn loyalty points). We proceeded to tell them that we were sitting (standing) in OUR SEATS. He then moved along a couple of seats, only to find two women come and tell him to move again (because they were theirs). Then he started mouthing off asking the older of the two women what the fuck she knows about football, to which her daughter defended her (having been going to games for nearly 50 years). The bellend wife then proceeded to get physical with the daughter, calling her a cunt and dragging her by the arm, almost pulling her over the seat in front, until we interjected and put her in her place. It kicked off verbally for a while (everyone in the area on our side) until he, the wife, and his mates ended up standing on the stairs the entire game. Irony of it all is they all stood in near silence all game. Absolute whoppers. I guess what I’m trying to say is, we have some right entitled bellends in our crowd. Not the majority, thankfully, but some think that just because they’ve been going for a long time, they can do whatever the fuck they want and treat other fans however they want. There’s also a basic lack of understanding on how the away ticket allocation works, and fans belittling or looking down on other fans. Just to reiterate the situation that we are in… I know with 100% certainty that a maximum of 5% of the allocation for CL games goes to hospitality clients, maximum of 7% for PL games. That is no different to previous years. And there is some kind of misconception that “hospitality clients” means “entitled rich blokes”. Which is utter horseshit. Pretty much every box in St James is family or small business owned. Normal, passionate, fans, who happen to run successful businesses. People who are just as passionate, just as deserving of a ticket, as anyone else in most away ends, and most of which have previously built up massive loyalty with the club over decades. The narrative that is being peddled on social media about the club giving bigger allocations to corporate, free tickets to YouTubers etc, is just toxic, and complete bullshit. It could all be solved by a simple news article on the website spelling out factually how allocations are broken down. Despite all of the above, we had a mint night. Incredibly proud of the lads.

Atmosphere at PSG was the weirdest, pathetic I’ve ever seen. Europop disco pre-match. Prick doing karaoke on a tannoy, shouting all game, attempting to get their fans gee’d up. Just all round weird, plastic.

I can easily name 11 home games from second half of 21-22 and 22-23 that were flat as fuck. It’s all dependent on where you are sat. - Chelsea home 21-22 - Man City home 21-22 - Cambridge home 21-22 - Watford home 21-22 - Liverpool home 21-22 - Palace home 22-23 - Bournemouth home 22-23 (after the Queen) - Bournemouth home 22-23 (Carabao) - Leeds home 22-23 - West Ham 22-23 - Liverpool home 22-23 (apart from the Bobby tribute, awful atmosphere) I don’t think the atmosphere this year is all that different to last season really, apart from less Wor Flags displays.

You’re right to an extent, of course. But you can’t tell me that last season and many seasons before, we regularly had turgid atmospheres. A few more this season, sure. I think the biggest obvious issue between this season and last is that Wor Flags haven’t seemed as present this season, because focus has been on CL games. Last season it felt like a lot of games were Wor Flag spectacles which helped massively in building atmosphere. They were there today obviously, but it was a rehash of earlier stuff, and there is perhaps a bit of desensitisation to it when people have seen it all before. I’m not saying it should all be on Wor Flags of course… I’m just trying to find the obvious differences between this season and last.

The atmosphere had fuck all to do with the ticketing situation. It’s regularly like that and has been for years. For whatever reason the atmosphere one week is incredible (PSG) followed by shite.

I usually can’t stand Jim White (Simon Jordan is becoming much more reasonable in recent months), but Jim’s reactions and stirring in this are hilarious ?

As I said a week or so ago... from the horses mouth... if he needs surgery he'll be out for 6-8 months. If he doesn't, it'll be a few weeks still. There hasn't been any further update since he returned from Holland when I said that he has been told he doesn't need surgery as things stand.

I’m in the minority who thought this was horrific then? ?

No surgery needed (at the moment).