Empty seats results - 2017/18

Why would I do a piece on the number of empty seats at the Etihad and, even worse, bother to include also the same calculations for Scaffold Trafford? 

 

I’ll explain…

Meaningless quibbles

As posted roughly this time last year, I don't like to mention "them" if at all possible on my blog postings - I'm just not flippin’ bothered about 'em at all, really. However, regular readers might recall that I chuck this one in after the season has finished and the reason for that is quite simple.

As we have become more & more successful in recent years, filling our cabinets with an F.A. Cup, 3 League Cups, 3 Premier League title trophies as well as a Community Shield, there has been less and less for fans of a certain team from Trafford to beat us over the head with, as they try to find a crack in our armour to ‘have a pop’ at any opportunity.

Not that I’m bothered about them too much at ALL but, a few seasons back, I began to wonder just what was the gap between the number of empty seats per match / per season between us & them? And do you know what…it’s laughably not that much at all and, in fact, they have had, in previous seasons, more red seats showing than we have had blue ones!

To be honest, I wasn’t even going to bother posting this piece but, for some strange reason, even a Blue in my local has started to have a dig at Manchester City in recent weeks; accusing them of falsifying attendance figures to make our ground appear fuller than it actually was/is. And when he also stated that he believed GMP’s figure for our Southampton Premier League match over what was published both by the club and the BBC as being around 38,000 and not the official figure of 53,407 (yeah…I think I would have noticed around 17,000 empty seats, don’t you?) then I thought, what the ‘eck; I’d already collected most of the attendance figures over the season anyway…

So, here’s last season’s results ‘hot off the press’ and as I type those very words, I’ve not even yet worked out the final figures and, so, I don’t even know if we will have-had more empty seats in all competitions in 2017/18 or, once again, whether the difference is SO little it makes ‘that lot’ seem even MORE petty for-even bringing up the subject. We will see…

Manchester City capacities:

Domestic: 55,097

European: 53,000

Total number of empty seats in all competitions for 2017/18: 67,147

Most number of empty seats during a single match: 11,671 against Bristol City in the 1^st leg of the League Cup semi-final.

Least number of empty seats during a single match: Is actually zero, as we exceeded our supposed legal capacity for European games with an attendance against Liverpool of 53,461.

Manyoo capacity:

75,643 for both domestic and European games.

Total number of empty seats in all competitions for 2017/18: 41,915

Most number of empty seats during a single match: 21,387 against Burton Albion in the League Cup.

Least number of empty seats during a single match: 525 against Crystal Palace in the Premier League.

SO…

Manyoo had the least number of empty seats overall last season but with a mere difference of just 25,232. Is that worth 9 months of babbling over? Well if it makes ‘em happy…

However, the MOST number of empty seats in a single game go to Manyoo, with a whopping 21,387 as opposed to our +461 over capacity match.

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read. Of course, we’re on ‘transfer watch’ now until the 19^th August for incoming players (outgoing players can still leave until the end of August) and, for those with interest, the World Cup starts soon too.

The league fixtures are out on the 14^th June as well and, so, depending on what’s happening I might stick something on about one or more of those in the coming weeks. We’ve got 2 more kits to unveil before too long also.

For now, though…take care!