The Martin O'Neill thread (with added sacking #2188)

[Brend'Watkins]

I know we occasionally give away tickets, but Sunderland have been giving away thousands every home game for years, by all accounts.

I was nosing around their forum the other day and a student at the uni there was saying how they always have them kicking around in reception, to help yourself to, and you can literally walk away with handfuls of them.

Added to that, another thing Sunderland do is stick lots of tickets on stubhub (or viagogo, whichever they use) at mentally low prices - 10 or 12 quid a pop - to shift them.

Their ST holders are by all accounts mightily unimpressed that this still happens.

Other than the way season ticket holders are being treated, isn't this a good thing?

Yes and know is my answer.  Yes, it's great that people who can't afford to go get the opportunity but if it's widely known this is what they're up to then all they are doing long term is devaluing their product.  If they were doing well that wouldn't be so much of a problem but if they were actually doing well I doubt there would have been as many if any floating around.

[richard moore]

Interesting comments by Paulie as ever as I was amazed at what a big crowd they appeared from the TV to attract against such unattractive opposition in Norwich.

Also interesting to see how disconnected the media still is about MON for the most part. Whilst most Mackems, who know their football, can see the truth of it all, as we can, last night on R5, they were doing everything but blaming him for their plight. Marco Gabbiadini, their old striker, was on, and went round the houses in every possible direction rather than attributing any of it to his tactics and purchases. Mind you, to give him some credit, he had at least sussed out how dire Cuellar is.

Also, of note, was the fact that two out of three pundits, predicted Villa to get relegated. However, there were mitigating circumstances. They were Motson and Claridge

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Totally agree eamonn - we barely hung on in that league game, when they had 10 men for the last hour! 

Some things never change. As soon as Norwich went down to ten men on Sunday I knew Sunderland would struggle.

[Pat McMahon]

Totally agree eamonn - we barely hung on in that league game, when they had 10 men for the last hour! 

Some things never change. As soon as Norwich went down to ten men on Sunday I knew Sunderland would struggle.

Was it ever thus. Anybody recall the last game of 2003-4 when we played them at home and they ended up with 9 men for the last 10 minutes but still had us running around like school kids after the ball? Embarrassing.

[Ads]

If we'd scored first, or even equalised, the Villa support would have dragged them over the line. The atmosphere was incredible.

That is what my next door neighbour said to me ( he is a Chelsea fan). That added to their sense of worry until the first goal as they were waiting for Chelsea to get the fans going whereas we were willing Villa on raucously.

Re other comments, anybody who thinks all Chelsea fans are "Tarquins" hasn't come across them very much. They still have a big following of their old growlers who are very happy to indulge in shenanigans, as well as a sizeable number of "scarfers" who will chip in if the occasion arises.

The Headhunters were in a vast minority amongst crowds of 12k. Now even their firm is two bob in crowds of 40k, which seems to exist only to be shovelled by West Ham and Spurs on alternate weekends, with Millwall having a go now and again.
 
Tarquins, spit.

[pauliewalnuts]

I know we occasionally give away tickets, but Sunderland have been giving away thousands every home game for years, by all accounts.

I was nosing around their forum the other day and a student at the uni there was saying how they always have them kicking around in reception, to help yourself to, and you can literally walk away with handfuls of them.

Added to that, another thing Sunderland do is stick lots of tickets on stubhub (or viagogo, whichever they use) at mentally low prices - 10 or 12 quid a pop - to shift them.

Their ST holders are by all accounts mightily unimpressed that this still happens.

Other than the way season ticket holders are being treated, isn't this a good thing?

Yes and know is my answer.  Yes, it's great that people who can't afford to go get the opportunity but if it's widely known this is what they're up to then all they are doing long term is devaluing their product.  If they were doing well that wouldn't be so much of a problem but if they were actually doing well I doubt there would have been as many if any floating around.

Indeed. It is a very thin line between encouraging new people to come, via deals or freebies, whichever it be, and devaluing the product so much that your most loyal customers start wondering why they're paying so much year in, year out.

Mind you, it looks as if Martin is taking care of that, anyway.

Although I only actually raised it with reference to their "excellent" crowds.

[kippaxvilla2]

I think Sunderlands stadium is a great place - I went there when it first opened when (however way they were doing it) they did have full houses (in Kev Phillips' day) - we played them once on a Monday night and I was up there - it was a superb atmosphere and we bought about 400 which was a decent effort as I think we were going through a dodgy spell - might have been under Gregory.  We drew 1-1 after scoring first.  Considering that stadium was built for only 19m quid and you compare that to the cost of Wembley I think it is a good ground.  But they are a turgid team full of also rans, and he has to accept a good deal of the blame for that.

[Ger Regan]

That readytogo site is a bit odd, isn't it? I know that occasionally people on here accuse someone of being a blue nose if they post something negative, but over there it appears that anyone who says anything critical about MON is a Newcastle fan. Some of them are really sleepwalking into the mess that's being made by you-know-who. A case in point is the thread started stating that signing gibson, berbatov and michu for a lot less than the cost of johnson and graham would have been much better business.

[pauliewalnuts]

That readytogo site is a bit odd, isn't it? I know that occasionally people on here accuse someone of being a blue nose if they post something negative, but over there it appears that anyone who says anything critical about MON is a Newcastle fan.

When i looked at it earlier, there were about 10 different threads, all saying the same thing, ie MON needs to go.

No shout outs for Big Sam, though.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

That readytogo site is a bit odd, isn't it? I know that occasionally people on here accuse someone of being a blue nose if they post something negative, but over there it appears that anyone who says anything critical about MON is a Newcastle fan.

When i looked at it earlier, there were about 10 different threads, all saying the same thing, ie MON needs to go.

No shout outs for Big Sam, though.

10 different threads? There's hundreds of them, all saying pretty much the same thing, they all want him out. The only discussion is whether he should leave now or at the end of the season. Things have to be bad when they look back fondly to the Steve Bruce days. All the complaints are exactly what we moaned about on here, even Mackemdawg gets shouted down.

If it wasn't for Pubehead I'd really feel sorry for them. As a group of fans, they're a real decent bunch, far superior to their neighbours up the road and deserve a lot better than the crap they're suffering.

[Legion]

If it wasn't for Pubehead I'd really feel sorry for them. As a group of fans, they're a real decent bunch, far superior to their neighbours up the road and deserve a lot better than the crap they're suffering.

Same here.

[PeterWithesShin]

If it wasn't for Pubehead I'd really feel sorry for them. As a group of fans, they're a real decent bunch, far superior to their neighbours up the road and deserve a lot better than the crap they're suffering.

Same here.

And here.

[Damo70]

That article states that MON accepts that his owner/chairman will be asking serious questions of him at the end of the season. I don't see that ending well personally.

[olaftab]

If it wasn't for Pubehead I'd really feel sorry for them. As a group of fans, they're a real decent bunch, far superior to their neighbours up the road and deserve a lot better than the crap they're suffering.

Same here.

And here.

Also over here. Their supporters are great and deserve far better.

[SoccerHQ]

MON's biggest problems imo were the amount of garbage he brought as squad players, Sidwell (in fairness a good signing I thought), Davies and Knight (caused Cahill to piss off), Harewood and Heskey (7.5m combined, Darren Bent signed for Sunderland for 10m) and of course Beye.

If he'd sourced a better quality of back up player either abroad or in the lower leagues like Lambert has done then I'm sure we'd have had a much more competitive squad and made the top 4 one year.

That's of course if he'd suddenly learnt what squad rotation was.