Saints face having to make Alex McCarthy one of the best paid players at St Mary’s in order to keep him at the club this summer.

The keeper, who stepped up from being Fraser Forster’s back-up to the new number one during the second half of the last campaign, has just one year left on the three-year deal he signed when he joined Saints.

McCarthy’s form, which saw him named the Daily Echo Player of the Season despite only playing 23 times, has attracted the interest from of a host of Premier League clubs, including Tottenham.

They are also well aware of McCarthy’s contract situation and know that if Saints cannot convince the stopper to sign a new long-term deal this summer then the club may be forced to accept a knockdown price to move him on faced with the prospect of losing the 28-year-old for nothing in a year’s time.

However, the dilemma for Saints is that they are likely to have to offer a huge contract to keep him at the club.

That is because they agreed a new five-year deal with Forster last summer that made him one of the best paid players at the club. That contract is believed to be worth in the region of £15m.

At the time the club did not foresee that Forster’s form would dip to the point he would be dropped and McCarthy would go from the position of being the reliable back-up man to the first choice.

Though there would be some interest in Forster if Saints were to decide to try and sell him in order to free up the wages to keep McCarthy, it would be a big ask to find a club capable of matching his wages who would want to take him at this stage.

If Saints want to keep McCarthy the former Crystal Palace man and his agent are unlikely to be willing to accept less than money than Forster is earning, given the change in status between the pair.

With Forster being one of the club’s top earners, that means Saints will have to produce another blockbuster contract and also commit a considerable chunk of their wage bill to the goalkeeping department in order to keep McCarthy for the long term.