ant

Cheers, appreciate the response.

Has anybody been able to compare one of the unbranded/Sportsbet.io shirts to the Under Armour/LD Sports version? Looking to buy one or t'other as a present, and whilst I'm sure they'd prefer the up-to-date version, I'm half envisaging it being a Rupert Lowe-era special in terms of the quality.

Had to look up the exact date, but it was 28th October 1995. We hosted Wimbledon, winning 2-0 - with both goals coming from Neil Shipperley. Being a nipper I usually only got to follow the games on Teletext (or via highlights on South Today), and came away thinking that Shipperley must be amazing. Couldn't tell you anything about the game, but distinctly remember the crowd chanting his name as we poured out to the streets. Funny what the brain holds onto.

Called it. 😏 Simply makes far more sense. Regardless of the argument over whether they should've sold season tickets in the first place, I commend them for adjusting the plan. The original was clearly no longer fit for purpose.

Just 3 goals conceded from the start of December to now, covering 7 matches. Yes, we've had spells of being a bit goal-shy throughout that time, but mightily impressive considering we've faced City and Liverpool. Rest of the month doesn't look so initimidating now.

Haven't really been following my refunds, but given the travails experienced by many that are, thought I'd have a quick tally up. I've not received anything back from the club since 3rd November, where I was refunded two payments of 2 tickets on the same day. Assuming that was an intentional lump of 4 refunds, I've had 6 refunds in total from the 8 home games we've played. So Sheffield United (13/12) and Man City (19/12) outstanding. It'd be a clusterfuck for even a well-drilled organisation to manually process all of this, so can't even feign surprise that they're struggling. They'd be significantly better off flipping the workload 'round - refund the remainder of all STs now, and process per-match payments as-and-when people get to attend. Assuming anybody actually does get to before the end of the season. We know people from the club are monitoring this... Make your lives easier... 👀

We ask for a lot of different dimensions from our midfielders - look at how rounded Ward-Prowse has become, for one. Hojbjerg is insanely good at turning over possession - probably the best in the entire division. But such a limited player beyond that. It was a moneyball signing for Spurs, as they're asking him to almost single-purposedly fulfill that role - permitting far more freedom to the rest of their midfield. I guess it's not dissimilar to when we had Schneiderlin and Wanyama as enforcers (albeit Morgan became more of a box-to-box player with time).

Can't agree that an issue has to be novel to be worthy of highlighting. Can only speak for myself, of course, but I've been exposed to an awful lot of information and insight in 2020 that I wasn't previously privy to. No, surface-deep messaging alone doesn't affect change - but there's value in attempting to open a dialogue and keep it in the public consciousness. What doesn't help it go beyond the first step is when you have one person saying "This isn't fine", or " I'm not OK" and another sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "Everything is fine! We're relatively tolerant, us! Let it be." How do you make any meaningful progress when that's the case? Nothing will move to policy-level (taking your example, hitting the root cause of violent crime) if nobody can admit there's problems in the first place. Representation is proof that not everybody in football is racist. I'm not convinced it's a useful barometer beyond that, and it's certainly not a nuanced or definitive indication. Has it gone on for long enough? I'm still struggling to see how we're to judge that.

So are we effectively stating that there isn't enough racism (or great enough systemic imbalance) to justify the messaging? I'm just not sure we're in the position to judge that.

There seems to be a common theme running through this thread of "we must listen to the motivations of the Millwall fans" (which I wholeheartedly agree with), whilst in virtually the same breath stating "I don't want to see or hear about this gesture any more - time to end it". Is that not quite problematic and hypocritical in itself? Burying it may be convenient, but does nothing to address the root cause. Pointing towards Kick It Out and the status quo ante is reductive. Clearly it wasn't effective enough, else we wouldn't be having these conversations.

Hmm. Broadly I'm fine with a weighted ballot. But having approx. 12% of the 2,000 'capacity' fixed for the first game (likely a higher percentage if you consider the 2,000 is lowered by hospitality) seems a lot. Think I've had my season ticket for a decade now (essentially as soon as I could afford it after getting my first 'proper' job). And whilst I don't expect to be in some mega-special category for that, it feels a pretty hefty disparity in favour of the super fans. Ultimately there'll always be people 'losing out' with such a low attendance cap. But my main point is that if they're intending to rotate through ST holders as often as possible, having a high percentage of fixed allocations doesn't help that goal.

It'd be good to know! Was looking at buying one for a Christmas present, but there's no indication whether they'll actually be dispatched in time. It's said 'PRE-ORDER' (with no elaboration) since the day they first listed the Sportsbet versions on the store.

This is some stunning whataboutery and false equivalence. Never advance; never progress. If it's not traditional, it's not valid.

Well worth watching the Asif Kapadia documentary on Maradona. Kapadia also directed the stunning Senna documentary; both films shine a very different (more humane) light on each great, versus the media of their time. Yes, Maradona made many mistakes. Whilst very, very gifted he was human to a fault - and horrendously exploited whilst in Italy. Not to completely ignore his misdemeanours, of course... Just that - as ever - it's all a little more complicated than the 'surface level' viewpoint. RIP.

The amount of refunds they're having to process is mental. Guess it keeps someone in a job, but surely we've long since passed the point where they should be a bit more pragmatic? Refund us to the end of the year at least, and save a lot of pointless toiling. Won't it be costing them a few quid to keep operating like this? Unless cashflow is utterly desperate they might as well refund the lot now, minus a holding fee. Putting us on parity with most other clubs. They're unlikely to be able to 'cash' much (if any) of the money they're holding, and pretending otherwise doesn't seem productive. FWIW, I'm actually not too bothered when it's returned to my account. Simply seems nuts from their side.

Seems they still haven't sorted this yet, as I had pretty much the same thing happen last Friday. First tried to put an order through whereby the voucher covered all of the items + postage, i.e. there was £0.00 to pay. However when attempting to put that through (twice - having to re-enter all personal details each time), I was simply dumped by back to the store homepage. With the items still in the basket. Then added a filler item so that I had £1.45 to pay. That time I reached the payment screen and submitted my card details. Upon which the payment gateway hung, then crashed. The order sort-of seems to have gone through in the sense that it's listed under my order history. Albeit without an order number. Subsequently received three confirmation emails, none of which had an order number either. There's a pending £1.45 payment on the bank account, not yet processed. Emailed them there-and-then to enquire what's going on, but haven't heard back yet. Currently anybody's guess whether I'm to receive zero, one or three parcels.

Yep, just noticed this. The way it's worded, the club will manually adjust the final instalment to remove your credit. So in my case the last payment of £185.93 would instead be £73.93. Seems a bit counter-intuitive that when you click the 'Use my balance of £ 112.00' checkbox it doesn't adjust the figure of the final instalment. Think that's what confused me.

Supposedly so, but it's still an option at the Checkout.

Decided this morning to lump in on renewing, being in the privileged position that I don't mind the money being sat in the club. With that said, thought I'd spread the payment across a few instalments since the option's there. But when you select this at the Checkout it says you can't apply your 2019/20 credit. Having scoured the initial sales emails and the season ticket FAQ on the OS, I can't see this mentioned anywhere. I guess it's possible to work around that by both selecting the instalment plan and requesting a refund on last season's credit. Just seems needlessly convoluted.

Guess that money ain't hitting our account "in pounds sterling" then - nor any other currency Gao would care to mention. 🙄 That he unambiguously stated his willingness for the club to accept money of 'unknown' origin (hmm...) probably says a fair amount about the man's moral fibre.

Nope. 😔 https://theathletic.co.uk/1922323/2020/07/13/ornstein-manchester-city-premier-league-chelsea-onana/ Massively missed opportunity.

Some of these are quite fun. Particularly surrounding Ward-Prowse (who I consistently hear being sarcastically referred to as a 'set-piece expert' at games) and Redmond, who apparently never takes anybody on.

Haven't seen it mentioned in this thread yet, but the xG on Ings' effort was 0.05. Which (regardless of what you feel about use of stats in analysis) boils down to 'he made something of nothing'. I think that's part of what makes Danny so potent - you don't have to feed it to him on a plate. Give him the ball around the box and he's more than capable of crafting it into a chance.

It's interesting how perspective frames things, though. In Puel's season, 46 points was seen by most, if not all, as abject failure - mostly because of the dreadful end to the season. This season we started horrendously, then have been in excellent form since the November international break. The positivity has grown across the campaign, rather than tailing off. Which is where we're at now. My initial feeling was to agree that Puel had a much better squad, although when you look at what we ended the final match of 2016-17 with, I'm not sure there's an awful lot of difference. Forster Cedric / Stephens / Yoshida / Bertrand Davis / Ward-Prowse / Romeu / Tadic Austin / Redmond Subs used: Boufal, Gabbiadini, Pied --- Anyway, looking at our Prem record against Brighton I was expecting it to be pretty mixed, but turns out it's 3W, 3D. Could've sworn there was a loss in there, but must just be that any time Murray scores against us it feels like a loss. 2-1 home win, for me.

But he doesn't smile much and phones in his performances... Yeah right. Consummate professional on the pitch and has been frustrated when previous managers/tactics haven't been up to snuff. As have many of us. We've been seriously lucky to have somebody of his standard 'phoning it in' for so long.