Liverpool running Manchester City off the pitch on Sunday may have seemed like an inevitability at the time, but it has caused a meltdown of previously unseen proportions.
From Pep Guardiola holding up six fingers as Anfield chanted “sacked in the morning!” at him, to Phil Foden posting pictures of him holding trophies on his Instagram story, to Stefan Ortega doing some light classism about the city of Liverpool itself, it’s fair to say that Man City haven’t exactly responded rationally.
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The 2-0 defeat at Anfield was City’s fourth league defeat in a row and seventh in a row without a win in all competitions - the only non-loss of these being a 3-3 draw with Feyenoord in the Champions League which they led 3-0 in the 75th minute.
And as a result, it seems that the tendency for their fans to be plastic is once again rearing its ugly head.
@Ticketmancity, an unaffiliated Twitter account that updates about the club’s ticketing situation and facilitates ticket swaps, is suggesting that the Etihad isn’t going to get many through the gate for tonight’s visit of Nottingham Forest.
“My god it’s looking like a record low crowd for tomorrow night, lot of tickets being dumped but will no doubt be at the Derby” the account posted.
It's been four games, Man City fans
City haven’t dropped below a 50,000 attendance for a league game since the expansion of the Etihad Stadium for the 2015/16 season. They regularly do for Cup and Champions League games though.
So what a ‘record low’ means in this regard has a few metrics to be observed by. But any drop below 50,000 would be a damning indictment on both the club and the motivations of its fans.
No club can win forever. That’s not how professional sport works. Interest gets higher during periods of dominance, understandably, but a record-low league attendance after a single month of poor performance following four straight Premier League titles would be the ultimate support for the fairweather fan label that is levelled at them.
‘Emptyhad’ has been a joke bandied around for a long time now. But tonight could be a resurgence of it that even they didn’t expect.
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