League One, spearheaded by Saturday’s opponents Birmingham City, is as competitive and as wealthy as it has ever been and Cobblers have had to increase their expenditure just to keep up.
The Blues forked out a remarkable £15million on just one player – Jay Stansfield – but they are not the only club to splash significant sums of money. Wrexham and Stockport both came up from League Two with big budgets while the likes of Charlton, Huddersfield, Bolton, Barnsley, Blackpool, Peterborough, Lincoln and Wycombe all harbour promotion aspirations.
“The cost of running a football club in League One has gone up quite dramatically, that’s for sure,” said Thomas on BBC Radio Northampton. “We have had some benchmarking numbers and they are quite stark in terms of what clubs are spending and the level of losses.
“We try and limit our losses and we set a level that we’re comfortable with. This is our money and the owners’ money but it’s definitely gone up. We’ve talked about this league being especially tough this season but financially it’s quite incredible what some clubs are spending.
“Obviously we want to stay in League One but that’s more of a football goal than a financial goal. It would have a financial impact but that’s mitigated somewhat and it’s not the be all and end all for the football club.
“But we know what it’s like in League One and we know what it’s like in League Two and we would obviously prefer to be in League One.”
Thomas also spoke about the ongoing injury situation. Manager Jon Brady could be without as many as 12 first-team players when Cobblers go to Birmingham on Saturday.
“A lot of other clubs are in a similar position,” said Thomas. “I had lunch with Phil Wallace, the Stevenage chairman, last week and he was talking about how many first-team players they have out.
“There are more injuries now with the speed of the game and the schedule and you can see that in the Premier League. Pep (Guardiola) and Mikel Arteta are complaining about injuries.
“We have to do well whoever is on the pitch and we always make sure we learn. This year especially has been difficult with the impact injuries because there’s not much you can do about them – you look at Patrick (Brough), Tom (Eaves), Callum (Morton), Sammy (Hoskins). You can’t legislate for them.
“We might not believe it but statistically we were below average last season for training days missed and for games missed. This season we’ve just been very unlucky because we’ve had more long-term injuries and most of them have come in two positions – centre-forward and left-back.”
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