SAINTS are freezing their season ticket-prices for next season - regardless of whether they get relegated.

Championship football would mean four extra home games for the same money, but fans still fear that this pricing policy will hit attendances if the club loses its battle to remain in the Premiership.

Saints ticket-office manager David Luker explained that the club needed to plan for next season and wanted to provide supporters with the popular 'early-bird' option of prices at specially reduced rates.

But Nick Illingsworth, spokesman of fans' group the True Saints Association, warned it was "silly" not to wait until the club knew which division it would be in before finalising season-ticket prices.

Existing season-ticket holders will be able to renew at a saving of up to £32 if they commit before the end of April.

It is also almost £100 cheaper than the cost of season-tickets when they go on general sale later in summer.

The cost of an 'early-bird' adult season ticket varies from £441 in the family enclosure to £521 in the centre stands, with various other offers for children, teenagers, adult/child pairs as well as senior citizens.

Prices for individual matchday tickets, which currently range from £23 up to £37 for adults, will not be finalised until the end of the season.

Saints, who have more than doubled attendances since the move from The Dell to St Mary's, are writing to their 21,300 season-ticket holders this week to outline their pricing plans and are hopeful that many fans will take up the 'early bird' deal despite the worry of relegation.

"The board have decided to freeze prices for next season regardless of which division we are in," said Luker.

"It means that the cost would be incredibly competitive compared with other Premier League clubs and we would be one of the two or three lowest prices.

"We are obviously hoping to still be in the Premier League, but even if we are in the Championship it is still a fantastic offer.

"Supporters would be getting an extra four games and the prices are still extremely competitive with clubs like Leeds, Leicester, Ipswich and West Ham.

"It obviously is more expensive than some teams in the Championship who have not tasted Premier League football and have cut their cloth accordingly.

"But last season we had 14,500 people take up the 'early-bird' offer, which was about 66 per cent of the total and we hope that freezing the prices will mean a similar take-up.

"We know people might be more cautious about committing before the end of the season, but hopefully they will see that it is still a very good offer."

Illingsworth, though, said it was risky not to wait until the end of the season.

"The bottom line is that they don't want to hold fire because they want the income as soon as possible," he said.

"I think that is short-sighted and could really hurt attendances if the team does go down.

"If we stay up, then there is no issue. You could say all Premier League ticket prices are too high, but it is hard to complain at a price freeze.

"But I just think they could sell the 'early-bird' tickets now and have some sort of refund if the team is relegated.

"Although they haven't set prices yet for individual tickets, they will surely still have to keep them at a certain level to make it worth buying a season-ticket.

"I don't think this is well thought out and, if we do go down, I fear that we could see a big drop in attendances - we could be lucky to get 20,000 for quite a few matches.

"There might be extra games but people will only pay a certain amount for Championship football."