To be honest how we perform on the pitch doesn't really come into my thinking when I'm thinking about how much I or will potentially spend.
I suppose this was more of a way for me to try to get an opinion from those that simply feel that there are better ways to spend your money because it is in general very expensive supporting a top team in the Premier League.
I've thought in the past that there isn't a better way to go and see pretty much all of Europe, but since us having done countless European trips since our 1st being Santander in whenever that was, I'm thinking that maybe we could still go to loads of place in Europe but without the football being the main reason or motivator for going there.
However, is that transition hard? Do people who've decided to go that way regretted it and gone back to following City in Europe regardless of being absolutely ripped off by airlines etc? It's not the price of the tickets (unless it's Spain) to be fair. It's the cost of flights and hotels that really do you. I've tried to have a budget of around £500 for the flights and hotels but in the vast majority of cases that budget has been forced to increase by upto 50% easily due to flights in-particular increasing.
Last season, the group stage brought us trips to Celtic, Barcelona and Monchengladbach, of which I did Celtic and the pair of us did Gladbach. Celtic doesn't really count as it's just the cost of a domestic away day but 3 days in Dusseldorf/Cologne can be used as an example as to what I'm getting at. I'm not 100% on how much it cost us but I'm fairly sure that at exactly the same time they'd have been flights from Manchester to somewhere else like say Dublin, Prague, Berlin, Paris etc at dirt cheap prices. Now did or does anyone choose to go away to such places at cheap prices instead of going to where City are playing, watch it in a bar while taking in the sites of that City instead of forking out to get to the game? If you do, then have you enjoyed yourself as much or more maybe knowing that you've also not been ripped off by airlines etc?
Don't get me wrong, we had a very nice trip to Dusseldorf and Cologne. The football match was pretty poor though and we'd not be in a rush to watch us play Gladbach again to be honest.