It's a dream of nearly every other Premiership club to not only successfully reduce their wage bill, but also to have a squad where everyone is fighting for a first team place. Ask nearly any fan from another club and see how secure they are in their club's financial future off the park and playing future on it. That should make you realise what a good job is being done with the Saints.
The successful coaching of Gordon Strachan has enabled Saints to improve the current squad to a level where there was no desperate need for replacement players. The signings of Williams and Telfer shored the side up enough for Gordon to bring in players with potential, if not a huge amount of Premiership experience. Every one has been a gem: Niemi, Svensson, Fernandes and there's no reason to think that Prutton and Higginbotham won't be the same.
While Martin O'Neil bemoans the transfer window, it sees to have worked out well for the Saints. Having budgeted for twelfth place in the league they are sitting in eighth, with a real chance of getting into the UEFA Cup.
The transfer window has allowed the club to assess their position and move for players who will enable the club to make that push up the table. It's a four million pound investment which should repay itself in increased revenue from a higher finish as well as providing strength in depth to mount a challenge in both domestic, and hopefully European, trophies.
Yet this investment has not been made lightly. In order for two players to be brought in , and the contracts of Oakley and Beattie extended, all of the dead wood within the squad has had to go.
Chala and Bleidelis were makeweights in deals bringing over their more talented countrymen. Neither were ever going to make an impact on the first team. Neil Moss simply wasn't in the same class as either Jones or Niemi and was surplus to requirements.
It's a little different for Tahar El Khalej, who I feel was never properly utilised. He never complained and did a good job out of position. Still, it was clear that Saints saw him as a central defender and so he had to go.
Both Kanchelskis and Hall, brought in as squad cover at the start of the season, have both gone having left barely a mark in the club's history books.
The squad is set to be cut even further should Draper go and both Kevin Davies and Francis Benali look likely to be leaving the playing staff as their contracts expire at the end of the season.
When you take into account that Ripley, Le Tissier ad Petrescu were released before the start of the season, it all represents a significant drop in the wage bill. It also indicates that Saints, unlike so many clubs have at least got some kind of control over their finances.
We now have a squad of proven quality Premiership players supplemented by a group who are hungry to prove themselves at this level. It all makes for a very positive team and credit has to be given to both Gordon Strachan and Rupert Lowe for putting us in this position.