Premier League 2010/11 general thread

[EJG1980]

I think Spurs and Arsenal have a more loyal, long term fan base, than Chelsea do. If Chelsea, for whatever reason, dropped back into being an unremarkable mid-table team for a few years then I think their attendances would dip a lot more than if the same thing happened to Arsenal or Spurs.

In fact, that scenario often does happen to Spurs, and we still have the third highest average attendance of all time behind only Man Utd and Liverpool (and we've had a smaller stadium than most of the teams we're ahead of for most of our existence). We generally fill up the ground even when we're complete ****. Spurs and Arsenal also have massive season ticket waiting lists (My sister is 37,000th on the list at Spurs!!) whereas Chelsea are currently allowing any member who wants one to buy a season ticket.

Chelsea are a big and well supported club though, they do have the fifth highest average attendance of all time in England, boosted a bit by Stamford Bridge being a 100K plus stadium in the early 20th century, but you can't really argue with the numbers.

[Prototype]

Chelsea sell out every game. There are more empty seats at Anfield then there are at Stamford Bridge.

http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html

It's simply not possible for Chelsea to have had even a 1/5 of the seats empty for a match and get an average attendence like that.

Ian Wright likes to trot out a stat 'proving' how rubbish our support is by saying we had an attendence of 9,000 in 1994. Neglecting to mention that were playing Coventry, on a Wednesday night, in a game that wasn't the final game but was still after the league positions had already been decided. But then, that's what happens when you have a man who spent lengthy amounts of time at 3 different London rivals talk about loyalty...

Really. Latest on Chelsea season ticket.

Season tickets are now on sale to members with 0 loyalty points or more. Applicants must complete the below application form and return this to the box office by Monday 13 June at 5pm.

Like I said, if Spurs had a bigger stadium, they would be filling it up. Their season ticket waiting list is huge apparently. Spurs off the pitch are a success. And I'm not a Spurs fan, just saying.

[Adrock]

Those attendance figures arent bad for a club who were in the mire for much of last season. They also had arguably the most unpopular Liverpool manager the last 40-50 years or so?

Either way smurf, your idea of a big four isnt really the case at the moment. Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Spurs and Liverpool would be the clubs who are in the upper tier, I would say. However, I'd argue this season has shown how Chelsea and Man U are still beyond most other clubs and have been for a while.

[abigsmurf]

Chelsea had the worst run of results for something like 18 years and we still acheived that attendence.

Season ticket waiting lists don't mean a great deal, especially with a smaller stadium. Chelsea used to have a lengthy wait on season tickets when I was a kid. Waiting lists tend to build up because of people signing up with the mentality that it's better to be able to turn down a season ticket then to want one and have to wait 3-4 seasons.

[EJG1980]

I wish our season ticket waiting list didn't mean a great deal. 2011/12 will be the start of my seventh season on the list!

The highlight of my pre-season is getting the updated list so I can weep at how little I've moved up Bloody shame our new stadium plans are in limbo at the moment.

[merf]

I'm hoping for a few more trophy free years at the Emirates to get the list moving, I'm at about 35,300 at present

The real 'golden ticket' at Arsenal is the mysterious silver membership which they invite you to have, only costs about ?50 a year and practically guarantees you a seat for any home match you want to buy for, its a glorified red membership with better ticket rights but its not published what the rules to get one are. I'd love one of those as you not tied to all the dross games and midweek ones you may not be able to make and you only pay face value for a seat so its simply a pro-rata season ticket.

[EJG1980]

I'm hoping for a few more trophy free years at the Emirates to get the list moving

I fully endorse your excellent plan

At the moment I'm not missing out too much without a season ticket. People on the waiting list can buy "multi ticket packages" at the start of the season, each package guarantees you a ticket to four or five home games, so if you buy all the packages it's reasonably close to having a season ticket. I've done that for the past couple of seasons and it's a decent stop gap solution.

Of course you miss the better benefits of having a season ticket like higher priority for away matches, cup semi-finals / finals, big home European ties, etc., which is what I really want.

[EJG1980]

Fixtures for 2011/12 being announced today:

Opening day fixtures

Blackburn v Wolverhampton
Fulham v Aston Villa
Liverpool v Sunderland
Man City v Swansea
Newcastle v Arsenal
QPR v Bolton
Stoke v Chelsea
Tottenham v Everton
West Brom v Man Utd
Wigan v Norwich

Boxing Day fixtures

Arsenal v Wolverhampton
Bolton v Newcastle
Chelsea v Fulham
Liverpool v Blackburn
Man Utd v Wigan
Norwich v Tottenham
Stoke v Aston Villa
Sunderland v Everton
Swansea v QPR
West Brom v Man City

Final day fixtures

Chelsea v Blackburn
Everton v Newcastle
Man City v QPR
Norwich v Aston Villa
Stoke v Bolton
Sunderland v Man Utd
Swansea v Liverpool
Tottenham v Fulham
West Brom v Arsenal
Wigan v Wolverhampton

[Adrock]

Nice start for Liverpool

A fixture at Swansea should be nice if there is anything to play for on the last day.

[EJG1980]

Very tough start for Spurs in the first eight games:

Home - Everton, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal

Away - Man Utd, Wolves, Wigan, Newcastle

On the plus side our run-in at the end of the season looks less daunting.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Not too tough I'd say. I'd say 7 of those are winnable.

[EJG1980]

I'm not saying they're not winnable or anything like that, but I think having Everton, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal within your first eight matches counts as a tough start

[abigsmurf]

Not a great start for Chelsea but not an awful one (away starting game, Man U away after a month) . Only had a quick glance at the fixtures and it doesn't seem like we've any horrible runs of games, unusually spaced out which is good.

Anyone spotted if there's a standard "it's totally happened by random!" Sundays with insane amounts of big games?

[rmoxon]

I'm not saying they're not winnable or anything like that, but I think having Everton, Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal within your first eight matches counts as a tough start

Perhapse a tough start is a good thing? Man United had a tough start and they won the league last season..

Meanwhile Chelsea had a relativley easy start and look how their season ended.

Blackpool, while they might not have had that much of an easy start on paper, started the season well. And then look how it ended.

Id say getting the tough games out of the way first is a good thing really despite what people say about football being a game of confidence and all that.

Id be more concerned with finding a striker that can score a substanial ammount of goals than I would be with the fixtures if I was at Spurs.

[EJG1980]

I wasn't really concerned about it, just mentioning it because I noticed it when I was looking through our fixture list.

I don't think any of run of fixtures, tough, easy, a mix of the two, is inherently good or bad. If you get lots of points from them, it was good, if you don't, it was bad