PAUL Scholes and Rio Ferdinand certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons with their comments about the atmosphere and empty seats at Manchester City on Tuesday for the Champions League visit of AS Roma.

As you would expect when the criticism comes from former players of your arch rivals, City fans bit back and leaped to the defence of Blues followers arguing the spiralling cost of watching football is stretching the funds of the man in the street.

Scholes argued it was more a case of City fans becoming blasé in their fourth year in Europe’s elite club competition.

I can see validity in both points. Fans who see their team win more often than not do become spoilt for want of a better phrase.

We have seen it have a similar impact at Old Trafford during United’s decades of domination; visiting supporters were quite regularly those heard loudest when watching the highlights on Match of the Day.

Roy Keane even criticised his own fans, labelling those who turn up and eat their prawn sandwiches as having no knowledge of how football is.

Many regular United fans empathised with his view, much like many of their City counterparts will not appreciate the influx of what us supporters like to call ‘day-trippers’ now they are up there at the top.

Unfortunately, they will have to accept it is a necessary evil if you want to be successful. I expect Wanderers fans would gladly suffer that ignominy at present if they could just see their side win games regularly at home.

The cost argument is also one that cannot be ignored, though I would expect the Etihad Stadium may have been full had Real Madrid or even United been the visitors on Tuesday whether there is the mitigation of rebuilding work or not.

But then fans are still being fleeced by clubs in my opinion. Higher admission prices are something you would always expect in London as a travelling fan but now geography does not seem to come into the equation.

I hear that some tickets for next month’s Manchester derby between two north west teams are in the region of £56. Can that really be justified to those Mancunians from both sides wanting to attend, especially if they plan to take the kids as well?

Travelling Whites fans will also have seen their pockets emptied with a second trip to west London inside eight days at Fulham on Wednesday.

The problem you will always have with football clubs, especially at top level, is that the more money they have, the more they want to make.

City’s mega-rich owners could surely allow everyone in for a fiver if they wanted but they don’t.

Just like everywhere else, fans are taken for granted because of their loyalty.