Is Lowe gamble a cost cut too far?

The PLC chairman is not always right, but he made a comment in the club’s annual reports which is 100 per cent accurate.

Speaking of a wage bill which had remarkably been allowed to spiral to 81 per cent of the club’s total turnover, Lowe said: “The only justification for this would have been promotion, but in the event we narrowly avoided relegation.”

Lowe added, correctly, “that the operational performance during the period reflected in these financial statements was entirely down to the previous board.”

What he didn’t add was that David Jones, one of the four directors on Lowe’s board, was finance director during the period when the wage bill soared from 45 per cent of turnover to 81 per cent.

He also didn’t add that Michael Wilde, another of his three fellow directors, was the man who had brought in the executive and non-executive directors that had overseen such extravagant spending at a time when the Premiership parachute payments had finished.

When analysing the weekly wage of several of the Saints first team squad, it needs to be stressed that the players concerned probably didn’t personally ask for sums which many fans will see as lavish and well over the top, especially in these woeful economic credit crunch times.

Jason Euell didn’t ask for a £200,000 signing on fee for EACH of his two seasons at St Mary’s. His agent would have just tried to get him the best deal possible, because that’s what agents are there to do.

But at the same time, the players have to be seen to be earning their inflated salaries.

Fans will probably consider Stern John was adequately paid for his contribution to Saints’ staying up last season under Nigel Pearson.

In less than a full season at the club, he scored 20 Championship goals including the two against Sheffield United on the last day of the 2007/08 season that ultimately kept Saints from dropping into the third tier of English football for the first time since 1960.

Fans might consider Rasiak gave value for money in 2006/07 when he scored nearly 20 goals as Saints finished in the play-offs.

He might have been paid half a million a year, but he did more than anyone goals-wise to give Saints a fighting chance of raking in so much more.

But as for the others?

Sadly, as a result of the cost cutting that has had to be made, the likes of John, Grzegorz Rasiak and Marek Saganowski – the men whose goals could be so vital to Saints – have hardly played under Jan Poortvliet this season.

The Dutch coach has been handed a mainly young squad, with experienced heads the exception rather than the rule, and told to do the best he can.

So far, his best sees Saints entrenched in the relegation zone with more than half the season gone.

It is no wonder that Saints spent last summer trying to find a club willing to take Euell and Skacel – and their salaries – off their hands.

In a way, you could understand why Lowe felt the need to find someone happy to take on Rasiak’s wages, or John’s, or Saganowski’s.

What most fans struggle to comprehend is why ALL the experienced strikers were loaned out at the same time.

Do Lowe and Poortvliet really think – I emphasise, REALLY THINK – Saints can stay up without a single experienced striker to help the youngsters?

Though Saganowski has now returned, Saints might still not play him this month in a bid to ensure they find another club who wants to either buy or loan him.

Yes, that means they will carry on paying his £8,000 a week wages but might not play him until they have to – which could be sometime in February.

So, £32,000 could end up in Saganowski’s bank account while he is overlooked for three crucial Championship games against fellow strugglers.

If there wasn’t such a serious side to this – ie, potentially Saints’ second relegation in five seasons – it would be laughable.

But there is not much laughter around St Mary’s at the moment.

Saints’ situation is too perilous for that.

Football has been in danger of eating itself for a long time now with regards to the obscene salaries paid out to players.

As we have shown today, it’s not just the Premiership elite who are very well paid.

The likes of James Beattie and Antti Niemi were earning five-figure sums a week when Saints were in the Premiership under Gordon Strachan.

Back then, though, fans didn’t really complain – the club was flying, the players were performing, and after all Saints were just paying the going rate for Premiership footballers.

It is a completely different story in the lower echelons of the Championship, though.

There have been two major gambles taken by different Saints boards in the last few years.

The first was back in the summer of 2006 shortly after the Wilde regime’s arrival when money (both in terms of transfer fees and wages) was spent on new players – the likes of Wright-Phillips, Skacel, Kelvin Davis, Pele, Inigo Idiakez – that the club didn’t really have.

The cash was splashed because the executive directors believed, wrongly as it turned out, that new investment money was coming in.

But as a result of the signings, George Burley’s side were within a penalty shoot-out of getting to Wembley and being 90 minutes away from a Premiership return.

The gamble had failed – but only just.

And in football, as in life, surely you have to speculate (even if only a little) to accumulate?

Saints then lost several stars – Gareth Bale, Chris Baird, Kenwyne Jones – and replaced them with lower quality signings who were arguably being paid more than they had been.

The second gamble was taken last summer when Rupert Lowe decided to go Dutch and bring in Poortvliet.

Poortvliet is on a much reduced salary compared to his predecessor Nigel Pearson, and the players Saints have brought in are also earning less than the ones who have been sold, released or loaned out.

That is good news for the bank manager, and he is one man whose backing Lowe cannot afford to lose.

But is it good news for the fans?

The wage bill HAD to come down, that much is obvious.

Even Lowe’s fiercest critic would argue 81 per cent of turnover is not sustainable at all.

The trick is to bring it down while retaining a good manager who knows his particular league and giving him the classic mix of experience and youth to work with.

If Saints end up going down again, it will be a magic act that Lowe and his board will have failed to pull off.

Another gamble will have failed, but this one will have more far-reaching consequences ...

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