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They would never admit it, of course, but Southampton must be relieved that there won’t be any spectators for the final four home games.
There is no doubt about it, in recent seasons St Mary’s has become a never-ending malaise. For supporters, it’s felt like the old maxim of ‘it’s the hope that kills you’ had never been so apt. Just when the side appears to have solved the crux of their home issues and look like they are beginning to turn a corner, an old wound reopens.
The scars haven’t been purely flesh wounds; by now everyone, even the manager, understands there are deep-rooted issues that lay septic on the St Mary’s turf. Hope is what drives supporters to turn up again and again, thinking the next game will be different and home form will re-emerge. But not long after, the vicious circle rolls back round and reminds all that won’t be the case.
With four games still left to play in the SO postcode this season, Southampton have already matched their worst record in a single campaign at the stadium. Not since 2009, when Saints were relegated to League 1 from the Championship, have they lost nine matches at home. Their last game prior to the postponement of football, a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle, meant Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side have only accrued 14 points in their 15 matches, giving them an average points-per-game rate of just 0.93.
St Mary’s has been used as the burning ground to air all the club’s discrepancies and idiocies, serving up the discontented mistakes from the previous hierarchy for fans to witness on the pitch.
Dull passivity became the norm under Claude Puel, Mauricio Pellegrino and Mark Hughes. And now under Hasenhuttl, they are packaged with a bit more dare but still lacking the required guile.
This season has been the worst though. Although Saints’ football ideology is a lot clearer and frankly much better under Hasenhuttl, their ways of collapsing are becoming far greater and way more creative. It has included surrendering a two-goal lead, getting obliterated 9-0, conceding directly from a corner within the first 93 seconds, having three men sent off and letting Michail Antonio return to the south coast and perform his little old routine of turning into the second coming of the Brazilian Ronaldo for once a season.
Various pressures and mental blockage seems to be the incessant reasoning from supporters and the manager. At a fans forum earlier this year, Hasenhuttl suggested he would prefer his team to wear the yellow away kit at home. While it drew a laugh from those who were in attendance, it was almost as if the Austrian was still trying to come to terms with this ongoing, melodramatic saga.
Its got to the point where no one inside the club even attempts to hide it anymore. They confess the season’s nadir always come in red and white stripes, as if the striped pattern has the power to put those wearing it into a 90 minute haze.
Like the Leicester game, at times it’s felt like supporters were watching a satire, a comical television sketch, where the protagonists involved repeat a similar punchline each week, but with a subtle tweak in the set-up of the joke, just so the running gag can keep going.
But rather than laughs, fans now feel apathy. They have grown to love Hasenhuttl and his pressing-frenzied blueprint. They even began to like the players again after years of wilting and hiding in hibernation. But right now, they simply do not like playing at St Mary’s.
The atmosphere at the ground can also vary and perfectly reflect the mood of the players. Despite the generally full gate, the atmosphere has struggled to recapture its former essence from the glittering Championship/League 1 days, where at times, 10,000 less fans. Nowadays, it is hushed, reluctant ground, with the odd soundtrack of the ‘Saints go marching in’ being sung intermittently.
Unless supporters can all but know they are going to win a game, which is probably a two goal lead with 30 seconds to go, there always seems to be tangible sense of vulnerability. They sit there, waiting for the next kamikaze mission or collapse to ensue. In the infrequent times it doesn’t, well, that becomes a surprise.
So now as the Premier League begins to enter its ‘new normal’, all teams are playing in their home grounds without any fans. For some, supporters play an essential role in adding to the magnitude of task visitors face playing on their turf.
For Southampton, in all honesty, they are probably going to be the least affected. Perhaps given Hasenhuttl’s comments, the mere thought of just walking back into the St Mary’s changing rooms might even be too much for some.
But you have to wonder that without the audible gasps and transmitted tension from the stands, how different could performances on the pitch be? Fans are of course the backbone of the club and in the long run, players will need to be the ones to change, not them. But for now, in these uncertain, precarious times, this may well come as a welcome relief.
