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Xhaka not happy with the early leavers

Maybe he should aim his frustrations at himself and the other players for the 3 home defeats in a row

f***ing hell

I know it wasn’t great but cmon

We’ve a large squad but really limited quality players

The keeper, reinildo, Mukiele and le fee are all starts and massive misses

They are the only players we have, along with xhaka, who came with substantial known quality

The rest were largely speculative

Got a massive break after the mags

Win 3 or 7 with forest spurs and wolves thrown in there, we could break 50 points

I’m not a massive fan of our style of play but I can see we’re short of players and we don’t have any wingers so also gonna be short creatively
 

As an aside, threads like this are very important. There are over 30 pages of discussion here, and there's plenty of discussion going on about it online too. It's important that this is discussed and called out by those who believe that it's harming the team on the pitch, because we'll not get anywhere closer to a solution if we don't chat about it.

The club cannot call people out for it but I can tell you all right now that this is definitely seen as a huge issue internally and the players are very aware of it.

Does that not concern people when they hear that? It really doesn't reflect well on us as fans and I worry about the longer term implications.

We've built up so much positive momentum in recent years and I really don't want to see that get wasted.

We need these difficult discussions to make people think twice about their actions.
They should be able to craft a way of getting the point across from the players without bruising the ego of those who do leave imo.

And if those leaving early want to chuck their toys out the pram about being called out, what difference will it make anyway.
 
I admire your efforts but I think ultimately it's fruitless..

People don't see themselves as part of the whole..they think to themselves that I makes no difference if "just me" leaves, what difference will it make if I leave ?

But multiply that by 10,000 people and it makes a hell of difference.

The club need to be careful not to call it out too blatantly otherwise it could backfire, but in the past the 'till the end' campaign got it spot on but it was coupled with big important goals in the dying seconds.

The fact we don't see ourselves as underdogs against Fulham and Brighton is playing a massive part.

The start of the season we played Brentford and west ham at home and the felt like cup ties against bigger opposition, the fact we've pulled level with Brighton and Fulham so quickly is obviously to be commended, but it's partly causing this.

Maybe one of the players calling it out might effect a few people, but some people won't be bothered at all. A lot of people go home games as part of a bigger day out and routine with Thier mates and unfortunately aren't really that bothered about results in bog standard games.

Then you have the likes of my dad who on 88 mins will say 'right I've seen enough ' and heads off the pub to have a pint

There's too many different factors at play to solve this easily..

The fact that we didn't look like scoring a goal in a million years adds to it. If RLB has brought on Mayenda for Diarra and went 4-4-2 the last 20 mins it would have helped. But he brought on cirkin

When you include the traffic issues, and fact it takes 20 mins to get down the east stand stairs from the back rows, you've got a cluster fuck of a problem to try and solve
Best way to address it is to talk about it. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if some strategically placed interviews with players talking about the importance of having the fans with them Til The End in the lead up to the Spurs game appeared. Need people to be conscious of it happening at games.
They should be able to craft a way of getting the point across from the players without bruising the ego of those who do leave imo.

And if those leaving early want to chuck their toys out the pram about being called out, what difference will it make anyway.

Aye, let them cry. People don't like having their shitty behaviour called out.
 
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Maybe they saw we were preparing to bring a defender on when we are 0-1 and needed something to happen. I dont like it either but the way we are playing is pissing people off and maybe its giving them a little control over being slightly less pissed off than staying till the end.
 
We have always left our seats 2 minutes before the end of extra time and slowly walked down the south stand , along the concourse to the tunnel where we stand in the middle so not to obstruct peoples view behind. Then on final whistle will applaud and clap then make our way to the car. If we didn't then as you say it can add significant time to your journey. Those who stay in seats fair play, those who leave early fair play.
Lifes too short to get annoyed at things such as this.
Do those 2mins actually save you any time at all in reality?
 
Best way to address it is to talk about it. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if some strategically placed interviews with players talking about the importance of having the fans with them Til The End in the lead up to the Spurs game appeared. Need people to be conscious of it happening at games.


Aye, let them cry. People don't like having their shitty behaviour called out.
Blow some smoke up their arse; tell them how good they've been as fans, acknowledge recent performances have dipped and the players need to do better (and the fans have a right to demand better), and that they would help with that.
 
Maybe they saw we were preparing to bring a defender on when we are 0-1 and needed something to happen. I dont like it either but the way we are playing is pissing people off and maybe its giving them a little control over being slightly less pissed off than staying till the end.

I've seen this said a few times. I think people are missing the point a bit really. Nobody seriously thinks Dennis Cirkin coming on is what Reggie actually wanted to do, surely? It just highlights the complete lack of options on the bench. We had four bairns on there because of the sheer amount of injuries.

Cirkin is good at taking people on down the outside and getting crosses into the box, he's done it for years. He can also win you headers as an outlet on the wing. So there's logic behind the decision, whether people liked it or not. Same reason Hume has played on the right hand side of midfield so much.

He didn't bring on Isidor because he's not fit, he talked about it after the game. So what other option was there on the bench besides Cirkin?
 
Maybe they saw we were preparing to bring a defender on when we are 0-1 and needed something to happen. I dont like it either but the way we are playing is pissing people off and maybe its giving them a little control over being slightly less pissed off than staying till the end.
If they are that flakey that they'll leave with anywhere around 15mins left including the injury time, then maybe going to a football game isn't for them.
 
We are massively overachieving this season and with that the expectation of some of our fans has become unrealistic.

The atmosphere at the beginning of the season was something special. I wish some people would see how much we have achieved and just get behind the lads like we did at the start.
 
The club have set up a sub-group of supporters to meet semi-regularly to talk about atmosphere and ways of improving it, which I'm a part of (anyone can attend btw - there are others in this thread who also go to these meetings), and a big feature of the last two meetings have been the rapid decline in atmosphere at games

I can tell you now that the atmosphere will not improve.

The reason being that the fans, sub-groups, whatever you want to call them, who act as representatives of the fans and talk to the club; are all the same kind of people. They're all people who are bothered about things such as the bogs not being big enough, the paths outside the ground being dangerous, the pies in the ground not being good enough and loads of other daft shite.

If you want the atmosphere to improve then working class male football fans are gonna have to be represented when talking to the club, and in the ground you're gonna have to leave them to be what others consider to be a bit of a nuisance instead of slavvering on about how they're trying to kill everyone through putting a toe in the aisle and second hand smoke.

Tell Granit Xhaka from me at your meeting: the authorities in this country have sanitised the shite out of football, they have created a situation whereby a football ground is now full of consumers who treat it as being an entertainment, no different to being at the Oxford Cambridge boat race, in fact it's probably more rowdy there. If Granit wants the atmosphere to improve, tell him to start using his influence in the club and spreading the word that the working class lads need to be accommodated, one step at a time, first off: turn a blind eye to the lads having a tab in the bogs.
 
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