Mauricio Pochettino says he doesn’t yet know what sort of transfer budget he will be handed this summer.

There is a fear that Saints may have hit something of a glass ceiling.

An excellent season looks likely to bring them an eighth placed Premier League finish, equalling their best ever since the 1992 rebranding, but without large scale investment it may be hard to make the next step up.

It is something Pochettino is aware of and clearly needs to know the budgets on offer before making predictions as to whether the club can realistically progress much further.

He said: “You need to look at other teams and see other teams who are above us to look at average salaries and budgets.

“At this moment our only focus is to finish this season on a high to do as best as we can. Then we will be able to look at the pre-season and look ahead towards the new season whether we want to finish 8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th.

“Then we will be able to decide what goals we impose on ourselves at Southampton, how that set-up is achieved and how we go about achieving those goals.”

Pochettino is waiting to hear what sort of funds he can use to strengthen his squad.

“We are working as we always do in the organisation of next season,” he reported. “We are working on pre-season, evaluating how the future of the squad is going to be, what players will be in the squad next season.

“We still have three-four weeks left to solely focus on the league and then after that we will be able to focus a lot more on what the future of the club is going to be.

“It is true at this moment in time I don’t have the information of what kind of funds will be made available for me for this summer. “I do not have that information yet.”