MAURICIO Pochettino has fired an early New Year message to the Premier League’s big guns – hands off Luke Shaw and all our other youngsters!

Saints enter 2014 with teenage left-back Shaw being linked with a £20m move to Manchester United, while today’s St Mary’s visitors, Chelsea, are continually mentioned as Shaw’s next destination.

One national newspaper has even stated that Shaw will leave Saints this summer.

But Pochettino is adamant that is not the case, with Adam Lallana having also recently been linked to Old Trafford.

“Our idea is very clear – no young player is to leave this club,” insisted Pochettino.

“We want to keep our young players as that is the whole process of nurturing them and maturing them.

“We want them to play and have more experience, to make mistakes and to learn in the Premier League.

“It would be contradictory to go through this process to let them mature and then sell them off.

“It doesn’t make any sense so we want to keep them.”

Pochettino has had to repeatedly shoot down speculation linking his most prized assets with moves.

Just days before Christmas, he was again asked about Shaw’s future.

“It’s a very clear situation. The player wants to stay and the club is not willing to sell,” he answered.

“What we also need to consider is he still only 18, still progressing, still learning how to be an experienced player so we need to be very calm about the situation.

“It is taking him some time to mature as a player and I think all these rumours and this speculation around him is not beneficial for him.

“It’s negative for him.

“It’s also very clear what the project here at Southampton is – it’s a project of young players and Luke Shaw is a prime example of a young player who has come up through the ranks.

“What’s clear is that the player is not for sale and the player has stated he doesn’t want to go anywhere else.”