Perhaps the one bright spot of this awful season has been the Saints supporters themselves, they have sold out every game in the Premier League at St Mary's and also travelled in large numbers to away games, but that is starting to change.

Despite this season heading to be our worst ever in terms of League points, the Saints supporters have turned up in large numbers with every game sold out at home and the maximum ticket allocations taken at every away game and sold out.

But when it comes to the club itself showing appreciation for that support, there is a deafening silence.

Aside from the usual "Thank you for your great support" line sometimes trundled out in match reports, it feels like Southampton FC have taken the fans for granted.

Evidence of this was in the recent FA Cup ties against Swansea City & Burnley, when ticket prices for adults were over the £20 mark and the Kingsland Stand was closed, the result was that many decided to give both games a miss due to cost and a large proportion of Kingsland season ticket holders when faced with an inferior seat in another part of the ground, also chose to stay away.

The mood amongst Saints fans could not be farther away from the situation just 9 months ago, when we stormed through the play offs culminating in the win at Wembley against Leeds United.

Back then the mood was buoyant, but the club took it all for granted, they tried to make out that creating the red wall and opening fan zones was a present for the fans, but it seems to be a move that backfired, although many use the Northam fanzone and I don't deny it hasn't been popular, but the general feeling is that it was an opportunity for the club to milk it's supporters through overpriced food and drink.

The Northam End being given wholly to Saints supporters has not been a success, it has diluted noise levels rather than increase them, in recent years, the atmosphere at St Mary's has been impressive, but part of the reason for that is the fact that they were right next to the away fans and both sets of fans bounced of each other.

Now with no one to taunt, with the away fans in the far corner, the atmosphere is often flat, aside from frequent renditions of the Allez Allez song stolen from Liverpool, there is nor variety and the actual stand itself seems to be divided into 3 sections, the original Northam Enders on the Kingsland side, a central section and then the Itchen side, neither seem to be able to get co ordination in what they are actually singing at times.

But despite all of this the fans still continue to turn up, however the cracks are now beginning to show, for the Bournemouth game, there was just about a sell out, but the ticket exchange was full of season ticket holders trying to sell their seats, at one stage around 250, that showed in the ground where you could see pockets of empty seats.

Now we have the visit of Brighton on Saturday and with 3 days to go until the game there are still around 800 tickets for sale.

But what do we hear from the club, absolutely zero, I don't just mean thanking us for our support etc, but about the club in general, what the plans are going to be forward next season etc, we see the likes of Adam Armstrong & Sam Amo-Ameyaw leaving and rumours of several other players also wanting out under the new manager, but we hear nothing.

It is if the club fell that if they say zero and pretend everything is fine and nothing is going wrong, that the fans will stick their heads in the sand and believe them.

We need to hear from Dragan Solak, we need to hear from CEO Phil Parsons about what he is doing and not feel like it is another money grabbing scheme, we need to hear from new Director of Football or Technical Director about what is role is and how now he is here things are going to be different.

Supporting a football club is sometimes about perspective, a year ago we perceived that the club was moving forward after relegation a year earlier, but now the perspective is the polar opposite and that doesn't sell season tickets.

So the ball is in your court Mr Solak, it is also in yours Mr Parsons & Mr Spors, tell us how you are going to take us forward,.

Yes perhaps you feel that actions are louder than words, but if we judge you on that, then the verdict is damning.

All Photos Via Reuters

grumpy added 09:38 - Feb 19 'The Northam End being given wholly to Saints supporters has not been a success' Nothing to do with this,its because the football has been awful,we have won 1 game(1-0) and lost 10,9 goals for and 33 against. Ridiculous to say its because fans cant get the atmosphere going because they aren't near the away fans.The way the team has performed this season would have drained most fans and its to their credit they have turned up in good numbers. You wouldn't hear so much from the away fans if we had won more games and you would have heard more from the ground if that was the case. Of course you should support your team win or lose but look at those stats,their shocking,plus some of the defeats have been humiliating,Spurs 5-0 up at half time,losing to Brentford 5-0 and Burnley 1-0 in a FA Cup tie etc.

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TripleNiemi added 09:42 - Feb 19 Whilst a resident of the Northam and have been since the ground was opened, I much preferred it when the away fans were alongside. Since the Red Wall was introduced it is like the whip stand has been infiltrated by brainless kids. I mean, case in example, our kids singing about there being only one South Cosst Derby. Chaps, we know Pompey are the rivals, so why the need to air such a song whilst we are playing Bournemouth!?!? I think with time things will sort themselves out on the atmosphere side as equilibrium takes place with fans of the old Itchen corner / Northam striving to move ends. Once there are a few taking up residence next to the away fans it should help. Re: the silence from the hierachy, we have often said (and has been well documented on articles here to be fair) that we don’t want constant feeds of news or interviews from the board as they need to take valuable time running the place, however the silence really is deafening. I mean, by all accounts Dragan was the one besting down the door to tell Martin he was sacked yet it’s here say. For me it’s simple, Dragan is the major shareholder so needs to stand up and be counted. Whilst we can argue or disagree on the merits or not of Cortese / Liebherr, at least we had a strategy. We were told the squad / first team would be built around getting homegrown, English players who came through the ranks playing as the core of the team (and by Christ we were getting there). If Sport Republic are here using the place as a cash cow then just tell us that, but don’t assume we are all mugs and will put up with it. What is their strategy for getting us back up (if they even desire that) next year. I love Saints but don’t assume I will be led like a sheep and take the support as guaranteed.

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davidargyll added 10:22 - Feb 19 Yes it is all a very interesting dynamic. Because I don’t suppose, at least in the last few years, Dragan Solak has had such a financial disaster on his hands, whereby the merry dance his so-called trusted lieutenants have led him, will have cost him I reckon maybe £100m, if not more. Because their entire experience, plan and policy must have seemed so eminently logical when he and SR bought the stake off Gao. And look what a totally misguided concept it has turned out to be. So what does ho do now, indeed where/who does he turn to for good sensible advice? I posted earlier a great article from the FT this morning about how Brest, a much smaller club and budget than us in France, has done it, such that they got themselves in to the Champions/Europa league. I reckon he could do a lot worse than give the chairman there a call…

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saintmark1976 added 10:50 - Feb 19 Nick, I glanced at the ticket exchange last Saturday morning. There were 752 season ticket holders seats for resale not 250 as you suggest. Whatever the true figure it certainly didn’t include season holders who couldn’t be bothered to attend or put their tickets on the exchange. Any organisation that relies upon repeat business ( next season’s ticket sales ) finding that its customers can’t even be bothered to use what they have already paid for ( this season’s tickets ) is in considerable problem. A contributor to the Forum section of your site pointed out that there is now a chasm between the Club’s ownership and management who want to turn St Mary’s into a theme park ( fans zones, Dell Pub and overpriced hospitality ) and the majority of supporters who just want a competitive football team. Our club is at a crossroads and sadly I don’t think that its owners or management have the slightest idea as how to get its core supporters back onside. It certainly won’t achieve it by only opening the club shop on the third Wednesday in Lent or alternate Jewish high holidays.

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Bowlercow added 12:37 - Feb 19 Nick I disagree about the red wall I sit in block 8 and to me our fans are now louder whilst it is not so easy to hear the visiting fans I simple statement fro. The top saying all options are on the table at the end of this awful season
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IanRC added 14:21 - Feb 19 Why are those Sports Republic idiots not trying to sign Yuri Alberto or someone similar, complete incompetents.
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underweststand added 14:39 - Feb 19 Yes we are all disappointed. This squad must be one of the worst I can recall in more than 60 years as a Saints fan. Poor seasons were always part of the deal in the past, and the team relegated to L1, (20 years ago) on points deduction and not just bad results) but it was still a tad better than this one. Our present squad is the residue of 4 different managers who all had their own varied formations, and the current mob is still recovering from the 60 game "brainwashing" of Russball and last season's team was quickly cobbled together with loans and youngsters clearly not good enough for survival in the top tier. The other promoted teams are performing little better than we are, which again highlights the huge difference between those three places separating the two leagues. After struggling to get up, why do people seemingly think we should ..." automatically " be top half of the best league in the World. Success for many clubs - is simply surviving in the Prem. Juric is trying to conjure up an attacking formation from a squad without any traditional strikers, whilst players like; Adams, Armstrong, Brereton-Diaz and Alcarez have left to go elsewhere - and are scoring goals. Add to this suspensions, injuries and a small number of fit players who are more interested in collecting their salaries, whilst refusing to play. Few of this squad could even be considered to be " average Prem. standard " whilst they come up against good international players almost every week. I'm sure they try their best, but after conceding the first goal, or losing matches in the last quarter, there is very little to be enthusiastic about. We can only hope that we can divide " the sheep from the goats " before May and then invest in a squad capable of returning to the top in the next season, or two. We simply have to grin and bear it - regardless of whoever is manager.

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Jesus_02 added 14:53 - Feb 19 Comms has been aweful. There should have been a seige mentality from the start. Instead we came across as blindly possitive. There was a very vocal minority that where exteamly quick to turn on RM and his style of play. I hazard to guess they may not have even been the same supporters that turned out in the Championship. No effort was made to adress these concern and it was basically left to RM to manage fans expectations in pre and post match interviews. This lead to growing mometum of negativity. "Russball" and "Tippy Tappy" were blained but he claerly over achieved in the championship and planning for the Premier League was not well executed. For example we had to massivly break our wage structure and transfer policy to bring Ramsdale in. But can you imagine how humiliating some of the results might have been without him? I would conclude that while its seems irellevent when the team is playing well better PR is essential when we are obviously struggling, Short snippets about how lonely Sulemana is does create "espit de corp"

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Colburn added 17:10 - Feb 19 The silence is because they don’t really know what they’re doing, so they don’t know what to say. They knew Wilcox would be going but did nothing to find a replacement for nearly a year. They should have already had contingency plans for Wilcox going but obviously they didn’t. In addition, we won’t have the success of the likes of Bournemouth because we’re not prepared to pay 25 to 30 million on players, something Bournemouth did first year back in the Prem, so we don’t have the ambition, squad overloaded with average players, no space for youth to come through and a lack of quality to compete at the top as a result. We just have to hope Spors knows what he’s doing and we start to recruit strong pacy skilful players rather than joggers and snowflakes, Fernandes aside..

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mascott514 added 17:28 - Feb 19 Last time I checked, buying over priced burgers was not compulsory And I don't agree about the lack of atmosphere. Its been an incredibly hard season but when there's a glimmer of attacking effort, we try and get the team going. The away fans tucked away is much better. Next year, this will (hopefully!) all be forgotten, and positivity will reign!
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hortonsaint added 17:42 - Feb 19 Nick was always against the Northam Wall and couldn’t wait to say it had failed. Only positive of the season for him.
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SaintPaulVW added 11:00 - Feb 20 Adapting a famous political quote: 'It's the results, stupid' I think there needs to be more reassurance that mistakes have been learned. This season's key mistakes are allowing the manager to persevere with a style that clearly wasn't working and failing to adequately improve the squad in the off season. If those 2 reasons had been better handled, the results on the pitch would have been better, games more competitive and the atmosphere in St Mary's would be better. The stated aim to 'Yo yo' for a few years would be understandable to build the squad depth but we need to hear this. COYR

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kingolaf added 16:18 - Feb 20 Tripe
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