Ralph Hasenhuttl denies Che Adams will be leaving Southampton in transfer window

Ralph Hasenhuttl has firmly denied that striker Che Adams will be leaving Southampton in the summer transfer window.

Adams is on form and without many striking options, Southampton fans had been questioning the line said by Saints CEO Martin Semmens in this month’s fan forum - a quote that insinuated that Adams and any other player could leave if the terms were right.

“If somebody leaves the club, we’ll do it for the right reasons,” said Semmens when Adams’ future at the club was raised. “But I wouldn’t get too worried about an agent and Sky Sports and Twitter because most of those things aren’t true, as you probably see, because most of the players we’ve signed you’ve not heard of until we actually do it.”

At that time, it looked like Adams would be resigned to starting Southampton games on the bench. In fairness, Adams hadn’t scored a Saints goal since February.

After his game-changing substitute appearance for Saints at Leicester City last Saturday, where he scored two second-half goals to secure the win at the King Power Stadium, it appears that the club have changed their mind on Adams’ future.

“I can categorically say that he is our player and that he will stay with us, we love him and especially when he scores goals,” said Hasenhuttl when asked about Adams’ future in his latest press conference, per Alfie House of the Daily Echo. “He is our player and we will definitely not sell him this summer.

“I am more concentrating on getting him into the position to score goals, his mood in the last weeks has changed completely since he scored, since we changed shape this helps him definitely and I think this is the reason he feels more comfortable in this role.”

Adams has been linked to numerous rival Premier League clubs over the summer, including Nottingham Forest and Everton. It appears that Everton are the club that is the most interested at this point in the window.

However, if Hasenhuttl’s quote is anything to go by, there is little chance that Adams will be leaving Southampton in 2022.