Time is running out for Southampton, with Mark Fry, the administrator, setting a deadline of next weekend for buyers to come forward.

Players and staff were not paid on Thursday and a club source said that Fry had left them in no doubt that “things would look grim” if a deal is not completed in the next seven days.

Yesterday, Fry said that he is in talks with three possible buyers, but if progress is not swift, he could be forced to sell a player - probably Andrew Surman, 22, and almost certainly below market value. All the players will become free agents if they go unpaid for two weeks.

The Pinnacle group remains interested, but its apparently doomed attempts to overturn the ten-point deduction imposed by the Football League must jeopardise its chances.

Tony Lynam, the Pinnacle bid leader, had suggested that a single backer was funding the deal and named Michael Fialka, a North London businessman, on Thursday. Doubts were expressed about Fialka's access to sufficient funds yesterday, which Fry dismissed as based on “cursory” investigations, but Lynam still changed his story, saying that Fialka “has prominent people supporting his efforts” and “important connections in his [North London Jewish] community”.

A group understood to have Swiss funding could now be favourites.

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