ROY KEANE will never be  counted among my favourite  players of all time, but I had  to agree with him when he  railed against the type of  fans who were watching  top-flight football.

It is a fair few years since Keane  ranted about the ‘prawn sandwich’  brigade who frequented Old  Trafford – in the meantime he has  managed at Sunderland and  Ipswich Town – but his warnings  about the ordinary punter being  turned away from the game have  certainly come to fruition this  week.

Never mind the prawn sandwich  munchers of Manchester, now  Arsenal have taken a huge step to  turning the Emirates into a no-go  zone for partakers of pies and  pitched their future firmly with the  lobster thermidore echelon.

A season-ticket price hike of 6.5%  means that from next season the  cheapest price to watch the Gunners  is a mere £951.

Even more worrying is that the  club are seemingly  unapologetic  about the change.

Arsenal chief executive Ivan  Gazidis said: “Ordinary fans are  increasingly being priced out of  football.”

While he admitted this could be  bad for football in the long term,  there were  no signs of the Gunners  back-tracking on their decision.

And one can only assume that,  for the time being, they are quite  happy to price the great unwashed  out of their stadium, filling it  instead with yuppies in suits who  probably don’t have a clue who  Charlie George was let alone such  marvellous Gunners’ legends as  Peters Simpson and Storey.

For Gunners fans who have faithfully battled through the move from  Highbury and the increasing costs  of following their team, they must  almost be wishing that the club  would at least just take them for  granted for once, and freeze  season-ticket prices rather than  essentially working on the premise  that supporters are there just to be  fleeced for every penny they have  got.