If you’re reading this, you’ll probably be aware by now that Manchester City have been on the wrong end of plenty of ’empty seats’ taunts down the years.
Barely a City home game goes by without rival fans – usually United fans – commenting on how many empty seats are visible in the Etihad crowd.
On Sunday, with City facing Arsenal at Wembley in their FA Cup semi final, plenty of those watching the game on the television were quick to point out that there were also a few seats spare in the City end.
https://twitter.com/ForEverton59/status/856163884293607424
https://twitter.com/Carlito_East/status/856168765742043136
https://twitter.com/CaImaMane/status/856161603498242049
All those empty seats at a semi final City fans should be fucking ashamed of themselves
— @Sharpy (@Sharpy9PS) April 23, 2017
City can't even fill half of Wembley with fans… Hundreds of empty seats 😂😂😂
— Daniel (@DM_1986_) April 23, 2017
Lots of empty seats in the City end at Wembley
— GazzaC #BWFC (@gazzacrompton) April 23, 2017
In fairness, on this occasion taunts seem slightly unfair.
As the tweet below shows, it wasn’t just City fans that were guilty of leaving a few seats empty…
@talkSPORT 10 mins before kick off #Wembley . City or Arsenal .. who's got the empty seats ! #MCFC pic.twitter.com/kE5oefjkTL
— Simon Dear (@51dear) April 23, 2017
On top of this, the majority of the empty seats in question appear to be in the parts of the stadium where tickets are corporate and not allocated to supporters of either club.
The fact that the FA chose to hold the one semi-final including a non-London team on a Sunday afternoon and not on the Saturday might also have had something to do with the fact that City hadn’t managed to fill their end, too.
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