Anyone who felt that dropping to the Championship would lead to more Saturday 3pm kick offs, has had their dreams shattered in the opening half dozen games with 4 of those games being selected for TV.

Saints have announced that two of their games in September have been moved for Sky Sports.

The game up at Sunderland that was down for 3pm on Saturday 2nd September will now be brought forward to 12.30pm on the same afternoon.

The following weekend will be the International break, first up after that is Leicester City at home scheduled for 3pm Saturday 16th September, but now moved to Friday the 15th with an 8pm kick off, not a good omen for Saints as we all know what happened the last time the Foxes played at St Mary's in front of the TV cameras on a Friday night.

This comes after our opening day fixture at Sheffield Wednesday was brought forward to the Friday night 3rd August and then the trip to Plymouth Argyle on 19th August changed to another 12.30pm kick off.

This means that of the opening 6 fixtures of the 2023/24 season, 4 of them have been changed for TV, including all of the first 3 away games.

That leaves just two fixtures out of this opening salvo still on a 3pm Saturday kick off, the home games against Norwich & QPR.

Throw in an evening home game against Ipswich and an away game at Stoke, it will mean that of the first 10 Championship fixtures i only 4 of them will be the 3pm Saturday kick off that so many like.

If Saints get off to a good start then the situation is likely to continue throughout the season.

Photo: Action Images

Springhill_old_boy added 14:06 - Jul 21 Can´t really take Sky´s money then complain that the matches are moved so that they can televise them.
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Block8 added 18:26 - Jul 21 Annoying but Springhill is right but if they are changed significantly far out it can be worked around. Although Sunderland for a 12:30 KO is a challenge!!
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WestSussexSaint added 19:09 - Jul 21 Ironically relegation may actually mean we are subject to more TV disruption than in the PL. Being one of the “big names” in the Championship I suspect Sky will actually show more of our games in the EFL allocation.
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SanMarco added 12:39 - Jul 22 Depends how well we start WestSussex. The relegated club kudos will soon lose its shine if we are 17th after 10...
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mascott514 added 11:26 - Jul 24 I work late on Tuesdays and Fridays.... not sure my season ticket is gonna work out this year- using a lot of annual leave at this rate!
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