Cobblers chairman reveals huge jump in League One wages as club start making decisions on out-of-contract players

It is no secret that football has became significantly more expensive in recent years, particularly in League One since the likes of Birmingham City and Wrexham came into the division. Birmingham spent £15million on one player alone – Jay Stansfield – last summer and their wage bill is rumoured to be around the same figure, almost five times that of Northampton.

“The reality is that football has become a lot more expensive over the last year,” said Thomas. “The numbers we've seen show that the overall salaries in League One last season were £105million, this season it’s £152million. That just goes to show the increase in this league.”

Nonetheless, Thomas believes the club were able to find value in the January transfer window having signed Terry Taylor, Ben Perry, Dara Costelloe and Liam Shaw, all of whom have impressed, although Shaw has since been ruled out for the season with injury.

"I think the recruitment in January was good,” he added. “We don't like to take too much credit as owners but Nigel (Le Quesne) , David (Bower) and myself stepped up a bit in January and helped Kevin (Nolan) and the squad with the players that came in and it's made a difference to us.

"We don't want to go on about injuries but Jon went down for the season and Liam's gone down for the season and those are going to have a big impact. But some players are coming back now and if we can keep up the current performance level I think we'll be fine.”

Mitch Pinnock, Max Dyche and Jon Guthrie are among a host of first-team players who are out of contract this summer. Asked if the club have made decisions on any of those individuals, Thomas replied: “Yes and no. We have a meeting this week with Colin (Calderwood) and Kevin about some of the recruitment for next season. There'll be a couple of players that we know about but you've got to think about what division we'll be in and stuff like that so we can’t make every decision."