Saints Chief Executive Martin Semmens has been talking to the media about the speculation surrounding Pierre Emile Hojbjerg and gives a realistic take on the situation with a little bit of calling the bluff.
Chief executive Martin Semmens wants to see Pierre Emile Hojbjerg stay, but he's taking a realistic approach to the situation.
"He is that kind of character that under any circumstance he’ll give 100 per cent on the pitch", Semmens told BBC Solent.
"He’s fully committed to getting through this season and winning those nine games. When it comes to the transfer window, it’s a strange time.
"Let’s be clear about Pierre, he’s been absolutely upfront with us and everybody publicly that he sees himself at the very highest level of football.
"He wants to win the league, he wants to win the Champions League either with us or somebody else and at some point he’s going to either have to drive us to that level or move somewhere else to do it.
"If there’s a club out there that can win the Champions League and they think Pierre can improve their team, if they can pay for him then, in the end, we have to let him go.”
From what Semmens is saying it is clear that Saints would prefer to see the player sign a new contract and keep Hojbjerg at the club, but he is taking a pragmatic view of the situation.
He is not dressing it up, he is telling the fans how football is these days and with only a year left on a contract, a club, any club have to look at getting in a transfer fee that can be re invested and used to buy a replacement, that is the stark reality of the situation.
But Semmens is setting out his stall, Saints won't give Hojbjerg away and there will be a price to be paid.
The key is going to be whether any of the media rumours of the likes of Spurs or Everton being interested actually turn into firm offers, personally I would find it very strange if Spurs coveted the player as much as is being claimed in the media, you would think they would be setting their sights higher if they want to become an established Top 4 club who can challenge for honours.
Everton are slightly different, they have an owner who want's to be seen as ambitious and that manifests itself in the club spending big on transfers, but most of these big signings have proved average at best and some disastrous, we think we have made mistakes, but Bolassie at £25 million and 29 games in four years is not great business, Davy Klaasen £26 million 7 games and shipped out after a year for half that, the list is long, when they pipped us to Theo Walcott with a £20 million bid some Saints fans accused the club of lacking ambition, but Everton saved us a few bob on that one.
This being the case I am almost convinced that Hojbjerg's agent has used Spurs as bait to try and draw Everton into moving in for Hojbjerg as let's face it, these two aside there isn't a queue.
From this point of view Saints are being linked with other central midfielders and have done a little leaking themselves intimating that they are ready to offer Oriol Romeu a new deal, some would say there is little to choose between the two, yes Hojbjerg shades it a little, but not by much !
So Semmens is being forthright and almost sending the player a message that yes we applaud his ambition, after all ambitious players are the ones that will get us to where we want to be, but if he has ambition he has to go somewhere significantly better than where he is now.
Spurs would be that and so would Everton to a degree, but would that move have anything more than better potential to kick on, in the last four years the Toffee's haven't done that much better than us.
So a bit of bluff calling from Semmen's to Hojbjerg's agent, come on show us the money, we know his worth and if we get that and more then we will talk ?