In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including his former club’s recent decision to increase ticket prices, Cole Palmer’s omission from Chelsea’s European squad and why Man United must sack Erik Ten Hag, plus much more.
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Aston Villa ripping season-ticket holders off is a disgrace
There is a lot of excitement surrounding Aston Villa at the moment.
Off the pitch, there have been stadium renovations and good partnership agreements reached with the likes of Adidas who will now manufacture the kits.
On the pitch, the good times are back thanks to Unai Emery. After finishing fourth in the Premier League last season, we’re now on the verge of kicking off our Champions League campaign — the first time we’ve been in the competition since 1982!
Despite all of this though, the club, who have decided to charge season ticket-holders between £85 and £97 for Champions League home games, are using the feel-good factor to cash in while they can, and I think it’s an absolute disgrace!
I have a friend who is a die-hard Villa fan — he can count on one hand how many games he’s missed, including pre-season friendlies, in the past 10 years — but even he is being fleeced, and it’s not right.
I urge Villa, who are the club I have followed and supported since I was a kid, to reconsider their recent pricing decision.
La Liga already use dynamic ticket pricing, the Premier League wouldn’t dare, would it?
And on the subject of football ticketing prices, I want to bring to people’s attention dynamic pricing.
Dynamic pricing is when a ticketing company adjust a ticket’s face value in real time based on demand, therefore, the more people vying for an event’s tickets, the higher their price, once through the online queues, will be.
This sales tactic was most recently used for Oasis’ reunion tour, but, as many may not know, there are already European football clubs following the same model.
Valencia and Celta Vigo both use dynamic pricing for their home La Liga games, so as you can imagine, whenever Barcelona and Real Madrid come to town, prices are unfairly ramped up and fans left facing a decision: part with hugely inflated sums, or miss their team’s biggest games.
I really hope Premier League clubs do not follow suit. It is an awful way to charge fans — a tactic that relies on impulsiveness and people’s fear of missing out. I never want to see this style of ticket pricing used against fans of English clubs.
As far as I am aware, this tactic is going to be looked at by Watchdog but until legislation is brought in to combat it, it will continue.
Players should be capped at 50 appearances a season
Interestingly, my thoughts on ticketing ties in quite well with another topic I want to discuss.
One of the big stories this week has been Chelsea’s decision to leave Cole Palmer out of their 23-man squad for their UEFA Conference League group games. Although we were surprised by the news, we probably shouldn’t have been.
I think we’re going to see this kind of thing happening more and more often — and going back to my very first point about Villa charging season-ticket holders nearly £100 per home European game — if I am right, and other teams take the same approach in the future, how can clubs then justify increasing ticket prices when their best players may be missing?
There is an absolutely ridiculous amount of football played in a season nowadays and players, despite being in peak physical condition, just can’t cope with it. This was proven by several lacklustre displays in the EUROs.
There is a reason Erling Haaland looks like a beast compared to other big-name strikers. He’s 100 per cent fit and fresh after having the summer off following Norway’s failure to qualify for the EUROs.
If players are going to be expected to compete across multiple competitions, both domestically and internationally, then surely it’s time we thought about bringing in an appearance cap. I recommend a 50 appearance cap per player, per season, and then let the player decide how we wants to split his allowance.
Time is running out for Erik Ten Hag
Moving away from ticket prices and football’s scheduling demands, Erik Ten Hag is under pressure at Manchester United.
I don’t care what anybody says, he is so far out of his depth its unreal.
I am sure Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS have come in and agreed to let him stay on because they’ve looked at the time Arsenal have given Mikel Arteta and thought ‘see, if we trust the process, it can work out’.
Ten Hag isn’t Arteta though. I know Arsenal have only won one FA Cup with Arteta but there is clear and obvious progression being made season after season under the Spaniard, and more importantly, the team have their identity back. The Gunners play technically exciting and fast-paced free-flowing football.
Historically, United have played the same kind of electric, all-action football; devastating defence-splitting counter-attacks but they are absolutely no where near rediscovering that identity under Ten Hag — at best they’re too passive and at worst they’re boring. He has got to go.
With the exception of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, the pull of Manchester United should still be big enough to make any manager in the world think about taking the job.
INEOS should be out there trying for Carlo Ancelotti. Yes, ‘Don Carlo’ is very much a Real Madrid man, but why not say to him: ‘You’ve won everything there is to win in Madrid, do you want to come here and make us great again?’ — Regardless of what he’d say, Ancelotti is the calibre of manager United should be targeting, not below average Ten Hag.