Jeff Bonser has reacted defiantly to claims that Walsall's relegation from League One this season was down to lack of investment.

In a statement put out on the club's website, the chairman rejected the suggestion the main reason for the Saddlers' dire season was the fact that he and his fellow board members had failed to give their two manager's enough money to compete.

Bonser said the playing budget handed to Paul Merson and then Kevan Broadhurst had been sufficiently competitive and he had already spent more on loan players than Walsall have received from Leicester City for the sale of striker Matty Fryatt.

"The budget set for the playing side of the club at the start of the season was higher than that of many of our League One rivals," said Bonser.

"We provided the financial support for the manager to sign players but it then becomes his responsibility to decide who to sign, along with, of course, team selection and team tactics," he added, clearly laying the blame at the door of Merson and Broadhurst.

Bonser also refused to accept that the board had been foolhardy to sell Fryatt in the January transfer window and that they should have prevented Jorge Leit?o from leaving before the end of this season. The chairman said it would have been unfair to Fryatt to stand in his way of progressing his career while Leit?o had made it clear he wanted to leave go back to his Portugal home at the earliest opportunity.