The average football supporter judges his club by balancing transfers fees received by how much is paid out, but as Saints have revealed it is far more complicated than that.

Every summer a section of the Saints support goes into meltdown claiming the club has not spent a fraction of the money it received in and that owner Katharina Liebherr is asset stripping etc etc.

This is very unfair on her, but symptomatic on the state of football in the UK where the top six clubs get richer and instant success is demanded and if not gained then supporters rant away on social media as we have seen over the last few seasons.

But the truth of the matter is far different than the perception amongst supporters.

The first myth to tackle is that Saints have spent out far less than they have received.

Over the past four season starting with 2013/14 when half way through the current board had to wrest the club from Nicola Cortese due to spending running away with itself not least on the training ground which was going far over budget, Saints have spent far more on player transfers than they have raked in.

In total they received £175.1 million in transfer fees and have spent out £220.2 million, that is some £45 million more spent than brought in.

But it is not as simple as that, there are also signing on fees to be paid, agents fees and loyalty bonus's, indeed in that time span, player remuneration has increased by 48 million over that time perhaps highlighting that the calibre of player Saints have started to sign in the last couple of seasons or so has increased.

These figures also dont take into account that in that period some £12 million or so was spent on Osvaldo a player signed under the previous Chairman and who left with his contract cancelled and little to show for that outlay, an outlay increased significantly when you add signing on fees and not insubstantial wages.

Saints CEO Gareth Rogers commented.

“If you go back to the 13-14 season to the current day we have spent just over £40m more on players than we have taken in. Once you take out contingencies, sell-on fees etc, we have invested more than £40m.

“In addition to that the wage bill has gone up just under £50m since we came back to the Premier League.

“Overall you are looking at a £94m investment over a four year period.

“Yes there is the common belief that we don’t invest. I sit here and don’t agree with it and the figures are audited, they are there, they go out into the accounts and people make their own minds up as they will."

“We are confident we are doing the right thing, we invest, and, ultimately, we have to do the right thing for Southampton Football Club.

“We believe we have solidified a lot of contracts this year, the wage bill as is in the accounts is expected to rise somewhere between £15m-£17m depending on final bonuses etc, and that’s only testament to the work of the club and what we are able to attract and move forward.”

“There is a misconception about this never ending pot of broadcast money,” he said.

“The club itself has expanded and with that broadcasting money comes obligations from the Premier League.

“People won’t see it but we put 4k cable in around the stadium because it was a Premier League regulation. That didn’t come cheap in the last year. That was close to a £1m investment.

“We had to put floodlighting in that was a Premier League regulation that was a £1m investment.

“The Premier League doesn’t just dish out this money and say ‘carry on as you are.’ You have to meet the broadcasting obligations that come with that.

“When you ask ‘is it enough’, you look at our performances over this time and we finished eighth, we finished seventh, we finished sixth, we have been promoted, we are looking to push back into the top half of the table this season, we have had a Wembley appearance, we continue to develop."

“Yes, you could say ‘have we invested enough’ but that’s an opinion. Our feeling is that if you look at the investments we have made it’s a significant number. It’s £90m over four years.”

But Rogers is only touching the tip of the iceberg here, add on things like £40 million invested in the training ground and the cost of running a club with over 300 staff these days and its a far more complex job than most would realise.

The problem has been for the club is that supporters these days only judge the club by transfer fees and current form, whilst most of the fan base will take a longer term view and will look back on this season as one of consolidation with significant steps forward, there are those for whom a run of 3 or 4 defeats is taken as a sign that the club is going backwards.

When that happened over the Xmas/New Year period some went into meltdown and tried to point out what they perceived as a failure to replace key players and indeed invest enough in the team.

Whilst they did have a point, they did not take into account that it is sometimes not as simple as that, as we have seen in the past panic buying sometimes gets you out of a hole temporarily, but is not good for the long term, in this respect Saints knew they had to take a step back, bide their time and do the right thing that might not be beneficial in the short term, but will set us up nicely for the future.

Football is all about perception and perception is often not close to the truth.

Saints have done the right things and to their credit haven't made excuses when the going was tough, they kept quiet, stayed true to the strategy and now that we have moved forward again can reveal a little more about that strategy without it looking like they are making excuses.

The club is still in a good position, if it can secure a top 10 finish this season for the fourth consecutive season then this will be a first for the club, add to that a major cup final appearance and suddenly the perception in the memory will be that of a successful season and a big leap forward, some supporters forget that only a year ago finishing sixth and Europe seemed an impossibility but it happened.

Add to that the squad we now have and we can move into next season with confidence, the only problem being that we are competing against teams with far more financial revenue than us.

To compensate for that we have to do the work the club is doing to increase that revenue and compete with them on our terms and not theirs, this we have done well so far and there is no reason why we cannot continue to do so.

With the departure of Jose Fonte the last of the Cortese era team is gone, the squad has been brought in on what the current board have told them and they can see the structure and foundations the club now has.

Players will always be sold, that will be the case, we have to live with it, work with it and use it to our advantage.

Photo: Action Images

patred added 10:12 - Mar 15 If it costs us extra to replace the players we sell, why sell? Most of our replacements (not all) are not up to standard of those sold, or take a season or more to attain parity. This also applies to managers and thier staff. This summer we have a pledge from the club that we no need to sell, let's see shall we. Our accounts prove that being a selling club is not as good a buisness model as it would seem. A radical idea, I know, but let's try KEEPING our best players to win a trophy or two, then access the value of our club.....

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SanMarco added 11:14 - Mar 15 Yes patred: "let's see shall we" sums it up perfectly. This summer will tell us a lot. "No need to sell" is a world away from "no intention to 'cash in'" Three profitable offers for VVD, Bertrand and Romeu + even a biggun for Gabby would test the fine words. I will believe the summer sales are over when I wake up on September 1st and say 'we didn't sell any of our best players'. PS if Puel is staying (I think there has been some talk that he is not happy/settled) he may well want to offload those players he doesn't want - that is a different matter. If Puel is still with us on 1 Sept then I can't see that Long will be and those midfielders rated 'not as good as JWP' will surely be considering their positions...

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SaintNick added 11:49 - Mar 15 Lets look at where we were this time 3 years ago, we had a team that finished 8th, that was about its top level, we sold and bought wisely and finished 7th and then repeated that and finished 6th. Most of the players sold went because they wanted to even demanded to, f we had held them to their contracts then they would not have signed new ones and would have still gone a season or two later fro a fraction of what we received. We would then have had little cash to replace them, we have to stop harping on about what if's and look at what we have achieved

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GeordieSaint added 11:56 - Mar 15 Lads, surely you remember the club trying to keep the majority of the players? Clyne Wanyama Morgan Toby Lallana That is just off the top of my head, all those players were offered new deals but didn't want to stay. What can you do if that is the case? Sell and use the money to buy someone else.
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SanMarco added 12:11 - Mar 15 Yes it is true that keeping those players would have been difficult so what has actually changed? I thought the mood music from the club was suggesting things might be different this summer? If so, how? If the 'cash-in' offers come in we will still say yes and then have to rebuild yet again. My view, for what it is worth, is that the club are saying no more Clynes and Wanyamas who walked for a fraction of their worth due to contracts running down. It is not that they won't go it is just that we will get full whack for them. It may be that such 'groundhog day' stuff is inevitable but please don't expect us not to be upset by it. Oh and Nick, if we didn't 'harp about what ifs' we would have a pretty quiet TUI. Every time we look to the future it is a 'what if' is it not???

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SaintNick added 12:28 - Mar 15 Every player has a value and when you are offered more you have to balance up the pros and cons of selling and keeping. If we were offered £60 million for VVD, then I would say that getting that and spending it on two £30 million central defenders would be a good deal and better for the team in the long run
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LordDZLucan added 12:44 - Mar 15 The moment I saw the article in the Echo I knew that we were going to get exactly this article from you, Nick, defending our transfer policy. You are nothing if not entirely predictable. The reality of the situation we find ourselves in at this very moment in time is that we have belatedly signed the goalscorer that we have so obviously needed since the start of the season and which most people on this forum had been calling for and he has got us out of jail. We are still very short on numbers in defence for the rest of this season but we are currently getting away with it because we can now score goals. What if we hadn’t have signed Gabbiadini? Let’s not forget the move was in the balance until the last day of the transfer window. Basically we got lucky. It shouldn’t be like that. We must now learn from this and not make the same mistakes in the transfer window this summer as we made last summer. One final point - you can’t look at our spend in isolation. It’s how we compare with other clubs that is the barometer of how much we’re investing in the team.

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landerwal added 14:13 - Mar 15 I see know mention of Brexit in your article Nick. This is going to have huge impact on Saints. With no free movement of players from the EU to England we would not have been able to buy players such as Fonte, Soares, Romeo and even Gabriadinni because none of them had played enough games for their senior national squad to qualify for a transfer to the Premiership. This is why the top six clubs in the are suddenly been linked with every foreign under 20 player on the Continent who has an ounce of talent so they don't have pay over inflated transfer fees when there are well established. Pity we are not thinking along those lines. .

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BoondockSaint added 14:15 - Mar 15 Notice how they conveniently leave out all the TV, etc income? OK, so I can't balance my checkbook, but I could have sworn we haven't spent all the Pelle/Mane money, which should have been spent in the summer anyway!
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pintsizedsaint added 19:04 - Mar 15 I'm sorry Lordszlucan but I have to profoundly disagree with your views. To say Saints "belatedly" signed Gabbi is completely ignoring the complexity and the history of that transfer. Saints (and others - including Koemans Everton) have been tracking Gabbi for at least four transfer windows. Napoli simply didn't want to sell. It took a lot of negotiation between clubs because Napoli knew Gabby was class and didn't want to lose him for peanuts. To say we "got lucky" is ridiculous. Let's not forget that Austin was scoring and flourishing in Puel's squad before he became injured, probably bringing Saints plans to nab Gabbi in the summer forward. Now we have 4 centre forwards vying for 1-2 positions. Equally, Saints were doing well in defence but suffered injuries at the wrong times: hardly Saints fault. All this rubbish about keep Fonte - he wanted out and so did we. He was hardly playing out of his skin this season and it appears he was disruptive in the dressing room. End of. And haven't we ended up potentially "lucking out" with signing a top quality, experienced defender in Caceres for nothing? You say "it shouldn't be like that" but, with the greatest of respect, do you actually know what goes into a transfer deal in a modern day premier league club? And if you compare us with other clubs I'm pretty sure you'll see we are outperforming those similar clubs who have bigger budgets and spends.

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SaintBrock added 08:39 - Mar 16 So it is really tough running a football club eh Gareth, even with the obscene amounts of TV and sponsorship money flooding in? Oh and did I hear somewhere that you guys upstairs are doing it all for the love of the Club and you wouldn't take a penny in remuneration and there is no dividend pot to pay poor old Katherina? Strange that I cannot find an entry under Registered Charities for SFC. Frankly chum, if you cannot stand the heat in the kitchen then get yourself a REAL job, there's plenty in the fanbase who could do at least as good a job as you lot and we might actually have won a few things by now. As for Nick's sycophantic chorus, place on "Ignore"

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davepid added 10:44 - Mar 16 What does it mean by us sopposedly being in a season of consolidation. Strange season to choose to consolidate given we were in the Europa league. Is that why JRod missed that really good chance at Inter or the whole team played within itself at home to Beesha and played so poorly away in Prague?
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