Seems to be more to do with prepping it for the media than any safety concerns although no doubt it's not ideal if there was a fire. Burnley had the option to reverse the fixture and play their first game at home but refused it in favour of a postponement, I have no idea why.
Problem for clubs of Luton’s size is how to afford all this work. If the one thing that comes out of promotion for them is a pile of money invested in stadium improvements then I wish them an honourable relegation without too much humiliation on the way. There’s no way a League 1 or Championship club can put that sort of investment in and be competitive on playing side. No point preparing a stadium ready for promotion and putting a team fit for relegation into it. Imagine having a 40k+ stadium in L1.
Yep. Only been once ages ago but it certainly wasn't intimidating. But journalists don't like work so resort to lazy stereotype. Much like there can't be any story written now on almost anything, without it being a " crisis".
That's all fine mate, I agree with most of it. But the safety of the public and players has to come first ... ... if there's a major incident I don't think they'd be able to cope.
They have definitely earned the right on the pitch. But the ground is exactly the sort of hazard the the Taylor Report highlighted . Wood everywhere, narrow access, not enough exits. It's a tough one, but a well ran club can manage it. They can look not far away at Brentford and Brighton to see the possibilities. They both built their grounds when they were outside the Premier League. As indeed did we mostly!
Completely agree on the safety, if not fit then they should play elsewhere while upgrades are completed. Not sure where, might be their only chance of Wembley this season
You know what’s hilarious on this…. Are PL fans somehow in more peril than those in the Championship? Like how is this stadium ‘safe’ and ‘ok’ for Rotherham, Sunderland l, Norwich, but not Man City, Arsenal? What about Burnley and Sheffield United? Their fans went there last season, will they now fall into a black hole of death if they go again? Daft. I was there years ago for the 5-0, it was a **** hole, but decent atmosphere and the furthest thing from ‘intimidating’ I can think of. The town was a ****hole even compared to 20 year ago Sunderland and the people were ****ing weird.
Part of it is that it's a small, tight pitch which means opponents have less space to play in, which can unsettle them from playing their normal game. Add in how close the stands are to the pitch, if Luton have unsettled their opponents it might make their fans a bit more boisterous than normal because they can insult opponent players more personally, like when one punched Amad in the play off second leg. This is what lazy journalism gives you when the talk about intimidating atmosphere. Let's see how it goes when they can't get away with the **** housery and teams aren't unsettled by the small pitch. My main worry is that some of their lot will get carried away with playing up to this supposed "intimidating atmosphere" reputation and go too far. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if say Salah, Mason Mount or Jack Grealish gets punched or spat on by a Luton fan, similar to what happened to Amad?
or point microphones toward the "Ultras" like Crystal Palace do so it sounds better on TV when the other 90 percent of the stadium are sat in silence.
Correct. The atmosphere at Palace is poor and identical in every game ... ... just a relentless dirge that kills any spontaneity or banter. This season will be just like last season.
The Palace thing is so fabricated. They never even used to have that one noisy stand till few years back, came outta nowhere really. Manufactured atmosphere.
You cant host a fixture, for reasons such as this, points deduction. Burnleys return to the Premier League has been slightly dampened because of this. When it has a knock on effect on other teams i think they should be punished. Coventry should have been hit hard last season.