Ronald Koeman insists Saints won’t wait until next season before trying to tie Nathaniel Clyne down to a new contract.

Though the Saints boss would not be directly involved in any negotiations, he is obviously keen to keep hold of his best players, of which Clyne is most definitely one.

The right back has been on sparkling form for Saints this season, and has also shone in two appearances for England.

With just one further season after this one left to run on his contract, there is inevitably a well of speculation developing over Clyne’s future, with several of the Premier League’s established top four believed to be sniffing around.

Saints can clearly not afford to wait too long before making their move and Koeman said: “It’s not my function.

“My function is winning games and to prepare the team for the next game.

“Of course I like to keep everybody in who has the qualities to play for Southampton.

“I know after this season Clyney has one season left and it is not normal to wait until next season and you do now something to keep that player.

“That conversation should be starting.

“You can’t wait til next season.”

He added: “I have enough conversations with Les Reed about the contracts of the players and we like to keep everybody in.

“I’m not surprised about the performance of Clyne for the national team because he’s a fantastic player and he showed that from the beginning of the season.

“If there is any interest from a player of Southampton we know that and we try everything to keep these players in because they are fantastic players.”

Koeman, who also denied flat out wild speculation the club could move to bring back Rickie Lambert on loan in January, also played down quotes in the French media from Morgan Schneiderlin which were seemingly blown up to spark speculation over his future again.

“I say nothing about his future because he’s a player of Southampton,” said Koeman.

“I know I had that experience as a player if you go back to your country and play for the national team and sometimes you do interviews, it comes over to England and they take things out of interviews and make a big story out of it.

“We will see what happens. He is a player of Southampton and we play on Monday.”

The game against Aston Villa on Monday starts a busy period of fixtures for Saints but Koeman is not looking too far ahead.

“It’s not good to think already for next week because Aston Villa is a difficult one,” reflected the Saints boss.

“They are in a difficult situation, they have to win, and we have to prepare ourselves and always in a better situation after winning that we have with City, Arsenal and Man United.

“Maybe Aston Villa away is more difficult than Man City at home, I don’t know.”