SAINTS administrator Mark Fry will be keen to try and complete a deal before May 21.

That date is significant in that it is the day on which Saints’ players and staff are next due to be paid – the third Thursday of the month.

But those will not include the salaries of £10,000 a week Grzegorz Rasiak, Stern John and Nathan Dyer.

There has been speculation that the trio’s combined wages – believed to be over £20,000 a week – would be placed back on Saints’ wage bill after the regular Championship season ended on Sunday.

However, as all three would have been available for the play-off final at the end of the month had either Watford, Bristol City or Swansea made it, it is understood that Saints will not have to foot the bill until then.

John’s St Mary’s contract, believed to pay him around £8,000 a week, expires at the end of June.