Ralph Hasenhuttl has praised Saints travelling supporters and clearly holds them in a higher regard than the club's ticket office staff who have once again not taken the full allocation for the trip to Palace leaving many regular away supporters frustrated.
Ralph Hasenhuttl has spoken of his admiration for the Saints fans who follow Saints the length and breadth of the Country to support the team.
Saints have a better record away from home this season that they do at St Mary's with 17 of the 28 points so far having come on the road, with the last three away games all resulting in victories and Ralph Hasenhuttl has been quick to praise the supporters for the part they have played in this run.
"The fans — our fans," he said. "They are fantastic when we play away and it's always a pleasure to play for them, to show them our passion.
"They are supporting us fantastically, and it's always nice to give them a good evening or a good afternoon with an intense game from our side."
It is good to see the manager recognise the part that supporters play in helping a team win games and he is right away from home the supporters have been magnificent.
But that is not a fact recognised by the club who have taken reduced allocations in 3 of the last 4 away games including tonight's trip to Palace and indeed when we go up to Anfield another reduced allocation taken will make it 4 out of 5 and in all of these games far more tickets would have been sold as witnessed by the quick time that the reduced allocation was snapped up.
At Palace tonight we will have only 1,800 fans when we could easily have sold the extra block for a full allocation, at Liverpool again another 1,800 tickets were snapped up and we could easily have sold another 1,000.
The allocation at Leicester was pitiful as it was for the trip to Chelsea, but this is not the fault of the supporters but the club itself.
Ralph Hasenhuttl knows how vital the backing of the supporters can be on the road, yet those in the ticket office don't seem to have the same views, yes they have a difficult job in making sure that we take an allocation we can sell, but they have consistently got it wrong in recent months, basing their decisions on financial reasons alone rather than taking into account that sometimes you have to lose a little money in order for the greater good.
The fans can all see the club doesn't want to lose money in unsold tickets, but for a vital game like this evening those that normally go to away games yet are unable to make the trip to Selhurst Park because of the smaller allocation would say that if it cost the club a few thousand that is peanuts when compared to the money staying in the Premier League brings and with so many players out on loan with their wages being subsidised by us to play for other clubs not to mention the millions in transfer wasted, that is a hard pill to swallow for the loyal supporter who is having to miss a game.