Southampton executive director of football Les Reed has stated that the club's talented youngsters are being courted by a host of Championship sides.
The Saints have invested heavily in purchasing new players over the past few seasons and there are fears that such an influx could hurt the chances of youngsters from the club's famed academy to earn regular first team football in the coming years.
However, Reed has insisted that bringing up players from the academy remains a priority for Southampton and has revealed that the club will look to loan out their coveted youngsters to Championship sides in order to hand them experience.
Reed told the Daily Echo: "We're getting enquiries from top Championship clubs about loaning our players – clubs who feel that they've got a chance of promotion, so that will be good experience for them, so it's a case of Ronald at the end of it saying 'Well, I'm going to keep him, him and him and him,' so when you add up the squad it's probably going to be a decent size, but also we haven't bought problems."