Incredible as it may seem but Saints could be looking at having their lowest crowd of the season when they entertain Crystal Palace on Tuesday night.
Despite being in sixth place going into the game and a win possibly propelling us into fifth and within two points of Arsenal in third it seems that the visit of the Eagles is not going to attract anywhere near a sell out crowd.
It hasn't helped that Palace themselves are not bringing a full contingent and that there will be empty seats even in a reduced away section, but the home sections still have plenty of tickets in all areas.
The block returned by Palace still has around 85% of the seats still available and the Itchen/Northam Corner has plenty of availability as has the Itchen/Chapel corner.
All in all there is a chance that the crowd will be less than the 27, 598 who attended the first home game of the season against West Bromwich Albion.
This is sad as it seems that a barren patch has seen several thousand fans turn their back on the team for this fixture.
But there is nothing wrong with Saints that a good win won't put right and in truth this pattern is no different than at many clubs in the Premier league, some of whom would die for their lowest crowd to be 27,000.
But what it should tell Saints though is that there is still a long way to go before we have a hard core of supporters big enough to push us on to the next level of attendances, hopefully they will see the need to reduce season ticket prices next season and implement a strategy of getting a core support who will be there week in week out because they are season ticket holders rather than fluctuating fans who pick and choose their games and therefore will follow results in fixtures like this meaning swathes of empty seats.