Shrewd Southampton get best bang for buck

Southampton are the club punching heaviest above their weight in the Premier League in terms of performance compared with wages paid to players while Chelsea are also over-achieving, latest figures have revealed.

The Saints are only ranked 16th in the top flight in terms of their wage bill — £55.2 million (€76.7m) — and yet are currently seventh in the Premier League.

Chelsea are 10 points clear at the top of the table but are only the third-highest payers with a wage bill of £192.7m ( €268m) behind Manchester United (£215.8m, €300m) and Manchester City (£205m, €286.1m).

Bottom-club Burnley’s wage bill is just £21.5m, €29.9m) including £6m (€8.3m) in promotion bonuses, one-tenth the size of United’s.

The biggest under-achievers are QPR, with a £75.3m (€104.6m) wage bill.

The wages costs and profits or losses of all top-flight clubs for 2013/14 have now been confirmed via annual accounts posted and overall there is a close correlation between total salary bill and league position, with the current top four in the Premier League also the four biggest payers.

The combined accounts of the 20 clubs shows over overall turnover rose to £3.07 billion (€4.18bn) from £2.3billion (€2.8bn) in 2012/13 with wages increasing too.

The latest figure shows salaries account for 59.9% of turnover compared with 71.7% for the same 20 clubs a year before.

The increase in income is mainly down to the Premier League’s lucrative television deal that came into effect for the first time last season. The cash injection has led to six clubs who were in the red in 2012/13 now being in the black.

Apart from those clubs who were promoted from the Championship last season, only Manchester City, Aston Villa and Sunderland ended the 2013/14 season having made a financial loss.

Premier League director of communications Dan Johnson said the clubs’ decision two years ago to introduce spending controls had also contributed to a positive financial outlook.

Johnson said: “There are two reasons for this. The first is increasing revenues and the second is the financial criteria the clubs have voted in two seasons ago which put financial sustainability at the heart of how they want to go forward.”

The measures introduced by the clubs capped the amount they could use television money to pay for player costs. It also put a long-term limit on a club’s overall losses.”

The figures also show Sunderland are the ninth-highest payers but are 16th in the table.