“A good fight is one you win, not one you put up”

SHE comes across as slightly dotty, a lady who invariably does the cake stall at the vicar’s garden party. Always twittering, wildly enthusiastic, bottle of sherry under the table. However, Delia Smith is one of the shrewdest football club owners in the Premiership.

Anyone who can make the millions she has by teaching the nation to boil an egg deserves respect for their resourcefulness.

Any football director with the nerve and the passion to challenge her own supporters with her famous ‘C’mon! Let’s be ‘avin you’ half-time battle cry deserves our admiration.

And any football supremo, in these days of wages beyond reason and players without scruples, who runs a club by refusing to go into debt, by treating staff with fairness and her manager Nigel Worthington with loyalty, gets my vote.

That’s why all football should hope delightful Delia and her Norwich team stay in the Premiership when the dramatic relegation free-for-all unwinds tomorrow - and dastardly Rupert Lowe at Southampton goes down. Apologies first to Bryan Robson at West Brom and Iain Dowie at Crystal Palace, who if Norwich stay up must prepare for swift returns to the Coca-Cola Championship.

Old Captain Marvel, as Robson was nicknamed in his playing days, has done a remarkable job of late in turning around West Brom, who at Christmas looked like a side lucky to get nil every time they turned out.

Dowie has also fought a dignified battle at Palace while nurturing one of the Premiership’s most exciting talents in 20-goal striker Andrew Johnson. It’s easy to make a deserving case for both West Brom and Palace.

The same cannot be said for Southampton. Here we have a club with a new stadium, sizeable support and adequate resources but a chairman who has played a footballing version of Russian roulette.

Lowe changes managers with the same abandon most men change their socks, eight in less than nine years, three this season alone. He is, it seems, a man whose indecision is as final as his disloyalty.

His treatment of Dave Jones was disgraceful. His obsession with attempting to return Glenn Hoddle to the club the former England manager betrayed only proved how out of touch he was with bedrock support.

His treatment of a worthy man such as Stuart Gray was despicable and who knows what he was thinking with Steve Wigley? It was like putting the a building society manager in charge of the Bank of England.

Paul Sturrock also succumbed to a media firestorm after just two games of the present season, which Lowe did nothing to attempt to quell. And so Harry Redknapp eventually arrived to pick up the pieces after leaving arch-rivals Portsmouth.

There are those, of course, who view ’Arry as a bit of a Cockney spiv, who want to believe the shameful innuendo put around by Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric, but his reputation at the coal face of English football stands up to scrutiny. He knows a bargain and his two-and-a-half years at Portsmouth were magical.

The fact that not even Redknapp, respected by the players and an accomplished man-motivator, has been able to arrest the Southampton slide says much for the disenchantment which has festered under Lowe.

And that’s why no-one should worry if Southampton go down. They have had their chance, and have squandered money on too many average Scandinavians. Their play has been increasingly neurotic and they will entertain Man Utd, who need a convincing display of their own before the FA Cup final against Arsenal, without striker Peter Crouch who was sent off in last Saturday’s petulant display against Palace. Everything points to the end of their 27-year stint in the top flight.

Whatever happens on ‘Survival Sunday’, one thing is certain - three sides will be left wondering just how to balance the books and at the same time remain in with a shout of ensuring a swift return to the Premiership.

The estimated £7 million parachute payment from the Premier League which all relegated clubs receive will only go some way to easing the financial burden.

Any of the sides would be expected to off-load at least a couple of their high-earners, while the likes of Andrew Johnson, Zoltan Gera, Antti Niemi and Damien Francis are sure to have plenty of admirers ready to step in. But according to Norwich chairman Roger Munby, Nigel Worthington would be under no pressure to dismantle his squad should the Canaries fail to beat Fulham tomorrow.

“We’ve planned our spending in such a way that, were we to be relegated, the finances of the football club would still be in a very good state,” said Munby.

“The current squad is totally affordable next season, whatever division we are in. Whether we kept all the players or not would be entirely the manager’s decision. That’s a very good position to be in.”

Ambition comes at a price, but that does not stop the likes of Palace chairman Simon Jordan striving to achieve the best for his club.

“I promised Premiership football in five years, we got it in four and by Christ I want to keep it,” declared Jordan, whose team head to Charlton also needing a result to beat the drop.

“I want to buy our stadium or build a new one; I want to improve our training ground and continue our investment in the team; I want this club to be a place that inspires people.

“Iain and I crave success. We want to build this club into an elite force. We want fiercely to be amongst the best and to do that you have to be in the Premiership. A good fight is one you win, not one you put up.”