When the ticket prices were released for the Carabao Cup tie with West Ham, many Southampton supporters commented that the club had over priced the game and this would lead to poor ticket sales and it seems they were right.

With 3 home games in the space of a week, it's an expensive time to be a Saints supporter, so when the club announced that adult tickets for the West ham Cup tie would start at £22.50 for adults and rise to £25 on a general sale with the only reductions being for Under 18's at £10 per head rising to £12.50, you didn't need to be a genius to make the prediction that this was going to be a poor crowd.

That seems to be the case as with just a day to go before the game Saints have scraped only around 10,000 tickets sold in the home sections, assuming the Hammer shave sold their allocation the crowd is not likely to be much more than 13-14,000.

With this being the summer break for schools it is the time most clubs look to the Carabao Cup to attract new fans to the ground with cheap tickets, indeed in the 1st round West Ham charged fans £10 and gave opponents Portsmouth 9,000 tickets, yes it was played on a Saturday afternoon, but it saw over 53,000 flock to the game to see West ham win 3-1.

It's not rocket science fill the ground with Cheap tickets for games such as these, but that doesn't seem to be the case in the Saints ticket office where even basic maths seems to have been failed at school, let alone rocket science.

For a family of four it is a whopping £75 to buy tickets for 2 adults and 2 U18 kids, bear in mind that in games such as these you are trying to attract those that can't afford to go to League games etc.

Add parking and even just the basic of snacks and you aren't getting much change for £100.

Charge £10 for adults and £5 for kids and you start to get a lot more people in and a lot more people means a lot more food and drink sold and kids want a shirt or scarf from the day and for the same £100 you can probably buy two young kids a t shirt and scarf for that same £100 and you don't have to share 2/3 of the money from that with the EFL & the away team.

Presumably having slashed ticket prices themselves, West Ham would have been agreeable to the price cut.

Southampton FC have made great strides in recent years in maximising income revenues, but this isn't one of them, we have missed a great opportunity to cultivate the next generation of Saints supporters and make a bit more out of this game all round than we will do at these prices

All Photos Via Reuters