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All that being said, I've not been particularly impressed by any home supports this season at away games so I don't think it's just an us problem. Top flight atmospheres have been getting steadily worse for years now and are at an all time low. Wolves probably the best if games I've been to.

Largely been disappointing in my view. Said before on here that it's full of atmosphere tourists; people who want to be in an atmospheric area but do very little to actually contribute to it. From what I can tell the front third of the stand doesn't really contribute much, probably two thirds on the old away end side. Loads of people spend most of the game after ten minutes playing games/checking bets on their phones. There's even a sizeable amount of people who spend chunks of the match sat down! It can be loud when it gets going but that's rare and generally different parts are singing different songs at the same time. For example the left side will start a rendition of 'oh Southampton we love you' and sing two rounds of it. On the second round the middle will join in and start their two rounds, the latter of which the right side will join in who then sing their second round on their own. Our lack of songs and inability to maintain them means most songs just fizzle out and it's not really an 'end' at all. The best it's been all season is probably the second half against Spuds which says it all.

Can't see Brum not coming up unfortunately. I'd like Wrexham and Wycombe to come with them. Both would be great grounds to tick off.

Can we end this experiment now and stop pretending he's any good? Dreadful player.

Aribo is barely a footballer in all honesty. Embarrassing performance from him yesterday.

I use this forum for all my Saints news. Anyone know how we got on yesterday?

Late notice but my pal has just told me he can't go so have a spare for this if anyone's interested. Can meet outside the ground. Drop a PM

I normally park in Croydon and then jump on a train at East Croydon. Plenty of pubs round there and won't all be rammed.

Surely anybody with eyes and has even a vague understanding of the game has been able to see we've looked unfit most of the season? It was obvious from as early as Ipswich.

Fingers crossed. Last thing we need is numbers to drop leading to the club taking only the lower tier at Everton which is bound to be incredibly popular.

Surprised Forest went to general sale, thought that would be quite a popular one. Good opportunity for those lower down the ladder though. Does make me nervous that we might start taking smaller allocations though.

Why wouldn't they?

Yeah I agree that our support has grown in the last two decades, and even in the last 5 years (see our away followings), but that doesn't automatically equate to sustaining 28k plus crowds in a situation where we're not bouncing back at the first attempt. I'm not against it as this season is as hard as I can remember for getting two seats together through general sale which runs the risk of losing a generation of potential supporters. I just don't agree that having good crowds in one championship season where we were winning most weeks means we'll continue to do so regardless of how we perform on the pitch. There weren't that many games last season where the home end was full and the away end wasn't as I recall. Most of the smaller followings came from clubs like Preston, Hull etc which weren't sell outs in home ends either albeit I think both of those were midweek.

Yeah people will always want to watch a winning team of course but I think we'll sell less season tickets than we did last year for reasons stated. At which point you're the relying on results to drive the crowds rather than them simply be through demand regardless of performance

I don't think you can look at solely last season and say we'll always sell out regularly in the championship. Last season was novelty for many after a long absence and that may not exist this time round. Next seasons attendances will likely be lower than last for price reasons alone as I don't see the club making big reductions after the rises this year. And then if we don't go up we'll be back to an average of 24k-ish the season after in my opinion. I'd say two-three seasons of good crowds isn't enough personally, it's when you have a waiting list for season tickets when it should be a higher priority. Especially if it's one people have paid to be on.

I think crowds will definitely be lower next season than last. For one ticket prices will be much higher as they're not going to significantly reduce them.

Or if you've already paid just turn up and give the cunt some stick in the ground?

You'd be better off passing it onto a mate who's up for giving Martin some stick.

That'll teach the club, being able to make more money.

If everyone with a printer at home printed 20-30 copies of this and handed them out outside the ground then it'd be sure to be picked up by cameras if held up as teams walked out.

Great news!

Cheers I'll give it some thought. Ideally don't want to rely on trains but might be the best option for this. Will stop at services somewhere along the way and make my decision then.

Why not the M5 out of interest, just because of all the extra traffic on it due to the M42 closure? I was thinking of going up that way and joining the M5 near Gloucester but this has made me reconsider.

I stopped reading at the part when Koeman was described as an attacking midfielder.

I'll pass on that thanks.