HARRY REDKNAPP is adamant Saints must hold on to Peter Crouch in the face of increasing interest from Liverpool.

The Merseyside Champions League winners are desperate to add Crouch to their squad before they resume pre-season training at the end of the month.

Liverpool have already seen a bid of £5m turned down but are set to come back next week with an improved offer, believed to be £6m, though Saints may hold out for more.

However, Redknapp is setting his stall on keeping hold of Crouch and building his team around him for next season's Championship challenge.

He said: "I spoke to Peter before he went away and he's still under contract here.

"I don't see Norwich selling Ashton or Palace selling Johnson. Selling Crouchie would send out the wrong sort of signals.

"We're not overloaded with great assets and we've already lost six or seven from my best 16, so we're way down on being as good as last year.

"If we sell Crouchie, we're going nowhere fast."

Redknapp added: "If we start selling one or two, you send out all the wrong signals.

"We've got to keep our best players and add one or two.

"The ones we've lost are not players that are no use to me, so that we're weaker now than we ended last season."

Redknapp will sit down and hold talks with Crouch over his future when the big striker returns from a holiday following his part in England's tour of the USA.

There is a feeling from Saints that Crouch must be valued at at least £7m due to the fact he went for £5m when he moved from Portsmouth to Aston Villa and at that stage of his career he had not played in the Premiership or for England as he has now.

Crouch, who joined Saints last summer for £2m from Villa, was Saints' top scorer last season with 16 goals and won the player of the season award by a landslide majority.

But Liverpool are believed to be the only club now interested in Crouch as Pompey chairman Milan Mandaric insisted today: that the Fratton club will not be entering a bidding war for him.

Saints chairman Rupert Lowe added: "We do not discuss our transfer business but there has been a lot of interest in Peter Crouch and we have had an offer which we have turned down.

"We want to keep the squad together and the relegation clauses in players' contracts mean we do not need to sell. Our destiny remains in our own hands."