The fans of the Championships 18th Best supported club will be distraught.
After yet another virtually full house at St Mary's with just about the only empty seats being in the away section or corporate areas, Saints finish the year with an average attendance that is just about double that of our near neighbours at Fratton Park.
The average at St mary's so far is 25,744, only bettered by West Ham with 29,430, in third place is Derby County with 23,961 closely followed by Leicester City on 23.476, fifth is Leeds United who have 23,409 on average, after that only Nottingham Forest, Cardiff and Brighton (just) have avaerage gates over the 20k mark.
The self proclaimed "Best fans in the World" are sitting in 18th place in the championship, with 12,881, as near as dammit to half the number who attend St Mary's, this is well behind Bristol City, Burnley and even rock bottom Coventry City, the Sky Blues showing that adversity is no excuse for abandoning your team.
Indeed if we take all 92 League Clubs, Pompey lie 42nd in the attendance stakes, whilst Saints lie 14th , with eight Premiership clubs with a smaller average than ourselves. a tremedous achievement.
This is all great news for Saints and hopefully the figures will only get better, certainly after the win against Palace the team deserve another full house for the visit of Bristol City even though its on a Friday evening.