HEARTBROKEN Matthew Oakley insists Saints' relegated players deserve their 50 per cent pay cuts after they "let the club down and let the fans down."

Like the majority of the current first team squad, the midfielder's wages will halve now the team has dropped into the Championship.

It was a clause inserted into almost every contract - but few players ever thought they'd see the day when it was activated.

Oakley, who has been at Saints for over a decade, said: "It's not easy to take.

"A 50 per cent wage cut is not good, but it's what we've deserved.

"We've let the club down and let the fans down.

"We all signed contracts knowing if we went down we'd have to take a pay cut.

"I signed mine thinking we'd never be in this position and facing relegation."

The crestfallen Oakley was at times almost inaudible as he choked back his emotions in braving the press along with Nigel Quashie at St Mary's yesterday.

The pair were visibly shaken as the reality of life outside of the Premiership sunk in.

"It's hard to describe," said Oakley. "It's a sad day for me.

"It's my club. I've been here 12 years and I didn't think I would be sat here talking about a relegation to the Championship.

"From being in a Cup final I'd never said we'd be relegated.

"It was down to bad decisions at crucial times on the pitch.

"In the Boro game, we were 2-0 up with two minutes to go and threw it away. We led Everton 2-1 and threw it away. It was bad defensive errors running throughout the team.

"The table doesn't lie and the worse team deserves to go down."

However, Oakley believes if Saints can keep their squad together they DO have a good chance of bouncing back to the Premiership at the first attempt.

"We've got the squad to do it," said the midfielder, who struggled to get a foothold in the team after returning from his long-term knee injury on Boxing Day.

"The squad was good enough to stay in the Premiership but at times we let ourselves down.

"To have to score four against Norwich at home to get three points says it all.

"If we can keep the players here it gives us a chance.

"It's going to be hard, especially to keep players like Antti (Niemi) that have already been looked at by other Premiership clubs.

"He's shown his loyalty to the club and he wanted to stay here when things were on the up, but we've had a bad year and who knows what's going to happen?

"But we need to keep Antti, Peter Crouch and Nigel (Quashie)."