Saints fans will finally find out where and when the club will be playing during season 2020/21 some 2 1/2 months after the original schedule was due to be released, however how many of them they will actually be able to gain admittance to is another question.

The new Premier League season is just over three weeks away and it will finally feel within touching distance on Thursday morning 20th August as the 2020/21 fixtures are released at 9am BST.

There will be 380 matches in total and Saints will be taking part in 38 of them, usually this would be the date when supporters across the country would be able to plan their weekend schedules etc to some degree, but for the first month at least there will be no supporters allowed into the games, the second month will hopefully see a return although only with a limited capacity and then after that it is unclear what will happen.

One thing that is unlikely much before Xmas, is that fans will be allowed to travel away to see their team.

It is also unclear how many of the games will be televised, will it be the normal number or will there be measures put in place so that fans can see the games they can't get into.

The likelihood here is that clubs will be able to put in place some sort of streaming of live games for their home fixtures but not the away one.

Anyway not long to go now and at 9am 20th August the fixture list will be released across media outlets and a small step toward footballing normality will seem a little nearer.

Photo: Action Images

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