Of course it is, I accept that, but I'm fortunate I'm not paying £100 a game. What I'm saying is I'd be questioning it if I had to. I'm especially sympathetic for those having to pay for a family. At least when we do it against teams like Spurs there's always a threat with the likes of Son on the break. Burnley don't possess such quality and I think £61 or whatever the price quoted is too much. They'll probably still sell out, but it'll be ambitious pricing when Pep goes back to the sun.
It cost me £112 for me and the kids yesterday for SS1 with Cityzens discounts. Ironically that made it a bit more bearable, as I can tell myself I paid '34 quid a ticket' rather than paid £61. What the club has basically got regular matchday fans like myself doing is paying out the cost of a season ticket for half the games. It is a kick in the nuts, especially at this time of year, but we all find ways to justify it to ourselves. For me, it's that a) I missed games when I left Manchester, before coming back, and had less money (so saved back then) b) I want my kids to see as much as possible not just of City, good or bad, but of what may go down in history as our greatest era, and the greatest team and greatest manager the world has seen, rather than look back thirty years from now only having watched it on the telly c) every matchgoing City fan, one way or another, ends up spending tens of thousands over the years on this love affair, whether its on away travel, kits, books, TV, beer, pies, years and years of recurring STs, or inflated matchday pricing.
I do fear that the club is playing with fire in the long term, because having sat all over the ground, I don't actually think there's as many 'new fans' in the ground as some people think. I don't doubt there's a lot of new Insta fans who never actually go to games, certainly a lot of demand for marquee fixtures from touts, scalpers, bots and people who are more fans of the game than fans of the club, but don't get the sense the matchgoing fanbase or the numbers of tourists is growing exponentially. Tickets can be tough to come by because right now we're the best team, with a relatively small ground and a high proportion of ST holders. But if we're going to add 9,000 seats - and remember that Pep won't be with us forever, you'd hope there will come a point where a bit of realism sets in about making prices sustainable.