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Manchester City Supporters Group Has Embarrassing Reason For Bad Attendance

Manchester City Supporters Group Has Embarrassing Reason For Bad Attendance

City's game in the Champions League, a loss against Lyon, caused all sorts of criticism after they failed to sell out their stadium.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

The biggest surprise to many watching Manchester City in the Champions League wasn't the loss to Lyon on Wednesday night but instead the lack of fans in the ground. Now they've come up with a poor excuse.

It's long been a joke by fans of other Premier League sides, especially Manchester United supporters, that the Etihad is pretty much empty when the league champions play at home.

The Etihad isn't always full of course but often it feels like some of the criticism is a bit over the top when it comes to the attendance at their games. However on Wednesday night it seemed very much apt.

Pep Guardiola's side opened their Champions League campaign against Lyon in midweek and instead of it being a sell out in Manchester there were just 40,111 fans inside the stadium, around 13,000 short of capacity.

Twitter was awash with fans, again mainly of other teams, claiming that was embarrassing that the Premier League champions had failed to sell out, or even get near, in their first European game of the season.

Kevin Parker, the general secretary of City's official supporters' group gave a reason to this, via the Times, and the arrogance in the statement makes it more embarrassing:

"We were in Pot one this year and because of that we ended up with Lyons, Shakhtar and Hoffenheim.

"No disrespect to them but none of them really are a game that you think "wow, that is going to be a cracker'."

Ahhh so it's the other team's fault that City couldn't sell out their ground, of course.

The arrogance in thinking that those teams aren't a big enough draw to entice fans that not too long ago were watching League One football and selling out Maine Road is ridiculous enough, even more so when City didn't even win against Lyon.

Fekir celebrates Lyon's second goal. Image: PA Images
Fekir celebrates Lyon's second goal. Image: PA Images

Pep Guardiola, watching from one of the few seats actually taken in the stadium, refused to blame the lack of fans, and its knock on effect to the atmosphere, for the loss, saying, "I wouldn't like to use that as an excuse, we had that type of crowd in the Champions League before and we were able to win."

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Topics: Manchester City, Football News, Pep Guardiola, Premier League, Champions League, Lyon, Fans