Albion and their Premier League rivals have been warned that higher ticket prices can impact on the benefits of home advantage.

The alert has been issued by Vincent Kompany, studious skipper of the champions and tomorrow night's hosts Manchester City.

The long-serving Belgian central defender, a survivor of City's League Cup exit on penalties against Albion at Withdean a decade ago, graduated last year from Manchester Business School.

His dissertation examined how Premier League clubs can take maximum benefit from home advantage.

Kompany (below right) said in an interview with BA's in-flight magazine: "I've always been interested in the factors that drive home advantage in football.

The Argus: "If you explore the psychology you find that the way you perform a skill will be improved if the environment or atmosphere increases your testosterone levels and response.

"We know that testosterone levels in players are higher when playing home games rather than away, so I wanted to find what those environmental factors were that could keep testosterone levels as high as possible at the start of the game.

"I spoke to many players, who validated a lot of my hypothesis, and then I started looking at the business model impact.

"When tickets can be bought by the highest bidder (who could be coming from anywhere in the world) you can achieve the highest price because for many it will be a 'once in a lifetime' experience.

"But because the people buying those tickets may well be 'neutrals' it will invariably have an impact on home advantage. And if home advantage is impacted, you can end up losing points.

"I came to the conclusion that clubs would be better off promoting strategies that encourage the benefits of home advantage rather than opting for higher ticket prices, because the incremental value of each point lost is higher than the value of those more expensive tickets.

"If you drive your home advantage, your revenues go up!"

Albion, in common with almost every Premier League club other than Burnley, have collected more points at home this season than away.

The other exceptions, ironically, are all-conquering City. They have achieved an equal split in amassing 94 points, although that could change against Albion at the Etihad ahead of their trip to Southampton on Sunday.