Shadow Puppets

I sat near him at the match on Wednesday and he seemed to be moving fine ?‍♂️

Tiered memberships would just bring with it more question marks over people paying more getting more benefits (not that I have a problem with that). There aren't many perfect solutions, but some incremental changes would help for sure.

If any opposing fans came on here during a match thread they'd think exactly the same. Usual suspects.

I think the strength of feeling isn't as big as you are making out, to be honest. In general conversations with mates most seem fairly understanding of the rule changes and why they needed to be implemented, although acknowledge that there are issues that need ironing out.

No doubt. Could explain why the hospitality / media stuff is all running smoothly though (the club still definitely run that side).

The first half was fine considering our line up. Slightly frustrating we couldn't do more with the ball, but we contained them and limited them to mainly sideways passing. Apart from one good chance I don't remember feeling overly worried we would concede. Second half we were tremendous.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is, what's wrong with that? That's not the problem, and probably a fair "perk" for people spending that much money every year. Also, from my experience, the vast majority of hospitality clients I have met are families... families who happen to have a bit of money from a successful company they run. They're just as big a fan as those in general admission, but with no ability to build loyalty points. So it makes sense to give them access to a hospitality ballot. The problem with how people have abused the general away ticket allocation is the problem, and it should be easily solvable. Also... I'm not sure if this has been mentioned so far, but apparently our ticketing this season has been outsourced to a 3rd party company due to lack of staff/expertise in our department. Which probably explains some of the stranger, less fan-focused, decisions. I'm sure that will change with time.

I’m talking about the hospitality away ticket ballot. Once you enter that ballot and say the names of the people who might be attending, should you win tickets in that ballot, you can’t change the name on the tickets from the ones you entered with.

Just back in from the game. Class that second half. Two big takeaways. - This forums opinions of Tonali’s performance is weird. He was sub standard first half, but second half he was involved in everything good we did. - What is Jack Grealish? Seriously… every single time I watch him play I’m just more and more baffled about what people see in him. Gets the ball, dribbles a bit, cuts inside, passes it to a CM. Repeat. Just a nothing player. All of his good, exciting qualities, gone ?‍♂️

As mentioned, corporate tickets can’t be transferred to other people once they’ve been purchased either. And I’m not sure what you mean by “True Faith” tickets.

As I've already said, the corporate/players/media is the tiniest minority of tickets, and once a name is on a ticket (even the hospitality ones) they can't be changed. And put yourself in a hospitality clients shoes... for £45k (minimum) per year, would you not expect a little perk here or there? Of course you would. Of course you should. Of course people who are spending that amount of money should be allowed access to away tickets, considering you earn no loyalty points from being a hospitality client. Spend that amount of money every year and not earn points... of course they should be allowed to access away tickets somehow. The problem is solely with the current rule for general admission. As Matty said above, the right answer is to possibly give a cap on how many times you can transfer an away ticket (maybe 3?). If you don't use it, you don't get the points.

Yeah that's fair. To play devils advocate, let's break it down though. HOSPITALITY: As I said, corporate allocation only amounts to around 100-150 tickets I believe and one of them has to go to the named contact on the hospitality contract (and the others have to be named at the time of entering the ballot... you can't change names after that point). Whether you believe that that's fair is up for debate, but I can see it from both sides. A corporate client will be spending £45k a year with the club... is it not OK that they get one or two extra perks for that? I don't know the right answer, just playing devil's advocate. It's not unusual in any business for people who spend more being offered little extras, is it. PLAYERS: Players get either 2 or 4 for every game... I think it's fair they can give them to anyone they want. They are the ones we pay to see at the end of the day. MEDIA: I don't know the deal for media. I assume that they get a media pass for home games at a minimum. I know years ago they'd get a +1 for away games too, but don't know the rules now. GENERAL ADMISSION: The vast majority of the away ticket allocation. People absolutely were abusing the system to build their loyalty points (I have a friend, for example, who has accrued tonnes of points but never actually attended an away game themselves). Limiting it to the named ticket holder in theory makes it fairer for everyone else with a season ticket. However, in doing so, it makes it unfair for others and locks out some regulars who were never the named holder. For me, wouldn't it make more sense to allow "named ticket holder +1"? Perhaps that's the best of both worlds. Anyway, I don't think anyone's saying it's a perfect system. I'm more defending Charlotte if she has in fact got a ticket via the other means. Not her fault is it.

So is this a sell out?

Charlotte will almost certainly get tickets via either her media contacts (she is friendly with all of the journos) or it's feasible that TF get access anyway as media or just on TF's season tickets. Or she has contacts in corporate. Via my work situation, I've been able to get tickets for Milan and Sheffield with via the corporate ballot. There is a much smaller separate ballot (I think around 100-150 tickets) for corporate clients. You can put any 2-4 names in the corporate away ticket ballots (depending on the game), as long as one of the names is tied to the corporate account. And there's also "player tickets". Players get an allocation of tickets for every game, including all away games. Usually these are in some low-grade corporate seats, but sometimes they're in the main away end. So I guess she could have contacts there with a player or player's family. I guess my point to all of this is, why does it matter? She's clearly a big supporter so why does it matter?

Pope Tino Schar Botman Targett Tonali Longstaff Anderson Miggy Murphy Isak I think it'll be relatively strong.

Are they though, or is it just a ploy from Pep? It absolutely won't be the kids.

At home? I'm 99% sure that Eddie wants to progress so we'll see a relatively strong side, and if anything, those players will still be on the bench.

Aye. Thought so ?

So for clarification, was the handball in the build up to the first goal actually ok? Because Gordon didn’t score himself, and it was accidental, by the letter of the law this year that’s ok, right?

Of course people are allowed to say we played poorly. It's the doomsday... "worrying", "Sunday's a must win else there'll be hell on", "Tonali and Bruno will never work", "Tonali was lazy" style posts that do my nut in. I think so many people on this forum / Twitter forget that there's another team playing sometimes. People expecting us to go to the San Siro and impose our game effectively, not taking into account that Milan are very good (like it or not, much better than us) with tonnes of experience of these types of games, the San Siro is a fucking monstrous atmosphere, the heat etc. These are all factors in why we played the way we did in those 25 minutes in the first half. Other than that, once we got a foothold in the game, we defended brilliantly and everyone put in a shift. The second half I thought was an excellent battling performance in a very difficult place to play football. Not many people go to the San Siro and get anything.

Is that true?

Why?

You're entirely wrong. It was fucking deafening at times in that stadium. And the ultras sang so much throughout the game that the moments of silence actually felt really ominous. They were usually followed by something belting. Seriously, don't judge it from the TV. It was incredible in person.

Well your feed was fucked. It was an incredible atmosphere in the stadium.

You didn’t hear the away fans because the home fans / ultras were relentless for 95 mins. Really impressive.