At the fan briefing meeting this evening, it was revealed that there would be a 200 ticket reduction for each set of away fans when Southampton take on Portsmouth this season.

There were no great surprises when Southampton FC , Pompey and Hampshire police all met for a briefing about the two South Coast derbies in 2026/27 season.

Both fixtures will once again be bubble games, pretty much along the same lines as last season, although both sets of fans were united in their feelings that some things needed tweaking in the organisation for this seasons two games.

Saints & Pompey fans both felt that there was no need for the ultra early start, both in terms of needing to be at the ground an hour before the coaches departed and the actual departure time itself.

There were also some complaints about the lack of organisation at the ground in regard to the availability of food and drink for the fans at both St Mary's & Fratton Park.

It was also revealed that each club would receive 200 tickets less for the game, the explanation gives was that this was due to the incidents of seat throwing after the game at Fratton.

Reducing the allocations by 200 would make it possible to have a bigger segregated gap on each side of the travelling support at either ground.

Apart from this most of the questions thrown at both clubs and the police were more about logistics and although, it was stated that all of the fans concerns would be addressed and tweaked when necessary, the general consensus from both sides of the M27 was not much was going to change in this years fixtures.

However it was agreed by most in the room that despite the reservations and concerns about human rights etc, that in general both games last season went off without much serious disorder.

From this perspective the bubble was doing the job it was implemented for, that for as long as most sets of fans could remember, the only games between the clubs that had been free of major trouble had been the four fixtures played using the Bubble, the two back in 2011 & the two last season.

Hampshire Police also confirmed that in terms of man power, there were a lot less police involved in the Bubble operation than were employed in the last non bubble game in 2019.

So no one could really argue that at present it was not needed, although some pointed out that perhaps if the two teams played each other for a longer number of seasons in a row, perhaps the tension would subside.

All Photos Via Reuters