The case of the missing spectators

This has been quite a hotly debated topic for the last couple of weeks where everyone's crying about the lack of spectators for home games in football matches in England. I have been following this a bit closely and what has come across is very shocking and surprising.

1. Ticket Prices: The price of a ticket at Chelsea is around $130 and even at a club like Portsmouth (no offence) its around $70. Compare this to the Spanish and German prices. The cost of a ticket at a Real Madrid game is around $60 which is lesser than the Portsmouth one. You tell me where you would rather go! Moreover German tickets for Bayern is around $20-30 which is lesser than what you would pay to see a team in the Championship (English 1st division). I mean come on. The ticket prices are usually a reflection of the wages paid to the squad. So figure that one out, but paying double to watch a Chelski game than a Real Madrid one - get real!
2. Overly defensive: Someone has slipped in the magic formation 4-5-1 and almost everyone in EPL is adapting to this formation. No one wants to lose. Arsenal and Chelsea have gone on to win the league with 1 or less loss in the whole season and even played innumerable 1-0 wins. The number of goals scored in the first couple of weeks of the season is drastically less than the previous season. As Mourinho says, 'Football and entertainment do not go hand in hand'. I hope for the sake of the game that he is proved wrong.
3. Ashes: Maybe, just maybe the low turnout is due to Freddie and the gang upstaging football for once in England.
4. One horse race: I hope for EPL's sake that it does not suffer a Schumacher, where Chelsea runs away with the league early in the season turning the whole season into a damp squib! Go ManU Go!!!

More on this at:
Eurosport
BBC
Reuters
ESPN Soccernet