RALPH Hasenhuttl has publicly squashed the idea of offloading Danny Ings now and insisted “he is our player for another year, there is no reason to sell.”

Former Liverpool and Burnley striker Ings has just one year remaining on his Saints contract amid rumours that Spurs want to bring him to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The forward has been Saints’ main source of goals for the last two seasons, netting 22 in the 2019-20 campaign and adding 12 more last term.

Despite injury concerns that have followed the 28-year-old throughout the later stages of his career, Hasenhuttl clearly feels what he offers the team is unmatched.

Speaking to BBC Radio Solent, Hasenhuttl was defiant in saying: “He has one more year left in our club, we need this player, we want him to play for us.

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“But it’s never helpful to go into a season with only one year left and I think he should also know.

“Messages like ‘he doesn’t want to sign a contract’ doesn’t help anybody, doesn’t help him or us. I don’t know who said these messages to be honest, it’s not coming from our side, definitely not.

“We have no interest to blame the player or find him not feeling good here, not helping him to perform the best he can for us. It’s his decision but anyway he is our player for another year, we paid a lot of money for him when we brought him here.

“We invested a lot to bring him, went with him through all of his injuries, gave him time to recover and he helped us massively with his goals, putting a lot of effort in while he’s been here. There’s still one year to go and there is no reason to sell.”

Winchester-born Ings cost Saints around £20million when he signed from the Kop in July 2019, following a loan spell on the south-coast.

The former Cherries academy man has played three times for England, scoring once with a brilliant bicycle kick against rivals Wales.

The Austrian manager did also admit that there a lot of voices around inputting their own ideas, as you might expect with a player of Ings’ quality.

He added: “Finally, he has his people around him telling him what to do, we have our opinions of what we want him to do, he’s our player and we’d love him to be here.

“One thing is clear, that it is not a perfect situation.”