Saints in 'advanced talks' with potential signings

And that means ensuring that the club can remain competitive when some semblance of normality finally returns to Franklin's Gardens.

A big part of that is shaping a squad that is expected to be an extremely settled one for years to come.

After all, Saints tied most of the men they want to keep to long-term deals during a turbulent 2020.

But, as ever, there will be some gaps to fill in the squad this summer and beyond.

And Darbon says it has to be business as usual when it comes to looking to bring players in to bolster Chris Boyd's selection options.

"If you look back at last year, we obviously extended the contracts of a large number of players in our squad, in particular a lot of our younger, high potential players," Darbon said.

"So if you look at our squad in its entirety, we haven't got too many spots that we need to fill because we've got a lot of players under long-term contracts and we're excited by that group.

"At the same time, there are still places available in our squad and as a result, we're pretty active in the market right now to finalise exactly what the full squad will look like for next season and beyond.

"We're not talking wholesale changes here, but there are certainly a number of moving parts.

"Those remaining spots will be filled by a mixture of both players who are already here, who we're in discussions with about their future, and a handful of new arrivals, and there are some pretty advanced discussions underway on that front, too.

"Of course like anything in our business right now, we've got to be pretty prudent with the choices we're making but make no bones about the fact, we need to have a highly competitive squad and to continue to invest in that squad because we think we can be very successful on the pitch.

"It's business as usual in terms of the process, but clearly the pandemic is having some impact."

Saints have always maintained that they spend up to the salary cap each year, as well as enlisting the services of the allowed two marquee players.

And Darbon insists that, despite the pandemic having a huge impact on spending power across the Premiership, Saints will continue to try to invest to the highest level possible.

He said: "We still remain in the top half of clubs in terms of spend on squad and I don't envisage that changing dramatically.

"We've got to make sure we've got a sustainable business model that can continue to underpin that investment into our squad.

"The salary cap is one way of looking at things but also you've clearly got to look at investment into marquee players and we think that's an important part of the make-up of our squad so we continue to invest on that front.

"We're not actively shrinking or cutting back our spend, we're trying to build a squad that is competitive and we're trying to build that in the context of ensuring we've got a sustainable business model moving forward."

So how are Saints coping financially?

They only had one game - the Champions Cup clash with Bordeaux back in December - when they were able to welcome fans to Franklin's Gardens, and even then the numbers were limited to just 2,000.

They are set to approach a year without anywhere near to a full house at their stadium and that is obviously having a big impact on the club.

So where do they stand at the moment, with Darbon having previously admitted that more than £1million was being lost each month during the pandemic?

"It's unbelievably challenging and as with many of the things we've lived through in the pandemic, you can take a couple of steps forward and then it feels like you're going a couple of steps in reverse not long after," Darbon said.

"But we continue to be lucky at Saints because before the pandemic we had a strong balance sheet, we own our stadium, we've got supportive shareholders, we've got a large and very passionate supporters base and we've got long-standing sponsors and partners who are deeply invested in the club and want us to continue to be successful.

"When you put all of those ingredients and more together, you start from a position of relative strength when you go into one of these things, not as though we've faced one before.

"But let's be honest, we've lost almost all of our income for what's not far off a year now and that is extremely challenging to manage.

"In the circumstances we've handled it about as well as we could have done, with real support from our commercial partners and our supporters."