THE share price of troubled Saints has plummeted to such an extent that the club has lost half of its value in just nine months, the Daily Echo can reveal.

And almost £900,000 of the overall £8 million loss followed the weekend's humiliating derby day thrashing by rivals Portsmouth.

There was even more bad news for chairman Rupert Lowe and his bottom of the Premiership Saints today when bookmakers made them the favourites for relegation at the end of the season.

Since July last year financial experts have watched the value of the football club fall from a high of £16.5m to today's £8.7m.

By Friday shares in its parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings were trading at 30.5p but by 11am yesterday - after the 4-1 Fratton Park defeat - they were selling for just 27p.

The club has just three games left to avoid relegation to the Championship which would end its 28-year run in top flight football.

But today bookmakers Ladbrokes made Herry Redknapp's team 1/6 on for relegation - favourites among the league's bottom four clubs for the drop.

Saints sit squarely on the bottom of the Premiership table with share prices at their lowest point for more than two years.

Saints director Andrew Cowen said the share price slump was typical of "volatile" stocks such as football clubs and did not suggest investors were panicking.

Shares in Saints' parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings were trading at 30.5p on Friday before the crunch game. When trading started again on Monday morning, the financial impact of on the pitch failure was quickly felt.

Shortly after 8am, when markets opened, Saints stock fell swiftly to 29p and then further, coming to rest on 27p by 11am, where it remained - a fall of 11.5 per cent. It is a far cry since the pre-season high, when, in July last year, club shares were changing hands at around 56p each.

The steep drop is bad news for Mr Cowen and chairman Rupert Lowe, who both went on a share buying spree when the price was around 50p. Both are now sitting on substantial paper losses.

Mr Cowen said: "I bought some shares at 50p back in the summer. That is not now looking like one's financial salvation with them at 27p today. In my case I am a director and I am looking at this as a long term investment."

Mr Cowen, who earned £301,000 last year for his role as an SLH director, said: "We are down 3.5p and a £900,000 loss isn't very far off the mark, but what is more important is that of the 27 million shares in circulation only 27,000 were traded. What that says to me is that this is not a panic. This is the market makers marking down shares quite aggressively. It is understandable considering they saw the poor performance, which doesn't help our battle against relegation.

"On paper the club is worth half as much as it was but that is because the value of the club has been artificially depressed."

Asked if Saints now represented a good investment, he said: "On the back of our heaviest ever defeat by our local rivals, with three games to go to the end of the season, well it's not for widows and orphans, is it?

"If we stay up we are a cheap Premiership club and if we go down we are an expensive Coca-Cola Championship club."