Morgan Schneiderlin believes he has become a better player for staying at Saints this season, but tying him down to a new long term contract at St Mary's looks unlikely.

The French midfielder was the subject of advances from Tottenham last summer and, though at one stage Schneiderlin was keen to move, he ultimately decided to stick with Saints for a further season. However, there are no guarantees on Schneiderlin's future beyond the end of the current campaign.

The Daily Echo understands that Saints did begin talks with Schneiderlin over a possible new deal several months ago when they also began to speak with the likes of Nathaniel Clyne and James-Ward-Prowse.

Those talks failed to get off the ground and recent reports that Schneiderlin is set to sign a bumper new deal that would make him Saints' highest paid player on around £70,000 a week are incorrect.

Instead, it seems increasingly likely that Schneiderlin will be courted by other sides again this summer, with the midfielder telling French media that several sides were interested in him and hinting that he will move on, even if staying this season has worked out for the best.

“Yeah, I would probably say yes (staying at Saints was for the best), because it made me even stronger mentally,” said Schneiderlin, whose current contract expires in 2017.

“It was a hard summer and I just had the confidence from the football club straight away, you know, to play the first game it just showed me that they wanted me to be here and to be an important player for this football club and I really enjoy the challenge and then, yes, for me, looking back, maybe yeah it was a good thing to stay here. But only the future will tell.

“Of course today I'm very happy to be at Southampton. There's no doubt that about it. I enjoy every time when I wear the shirt and every day with my teammates.”

Schneiderlin believes this has been another important season for his development as a player.

“I think that being in the World Cup gave me more confidence in myself, and with the manager we have this year, he give me even more freedom, he give me the confidence that I need to play my game and to feel good on the pitch,” reflected the Frenchman.

“I feel very good, I feel the best physically as I've ever been, I feel good on the ball, I feel very confident, so hopefully I can continue, but my targets since I was young is every year to make some improvement, and I have the feeling I am doing it this season, like I did last season, and hopefully it will continue to the end of my career.

“That's what I want - progress, progress, progress. I am not the finished product, I know I can still do more, I can still progress in some things, so hopefully I will be able to do it.

“This season, I feel like I have a lot of freedom, I have a lot of confidence from the staff and the players, so I am enjoying it very much.”

Whether this is to be Schneiderlin's final season in a Saints shirt or not, after seven years in Southampton he is hoping to achieve something really special.

“It would mean a lot. For me, to come in the Championship and to have this club now in 2015 in Champions League would be amazing, but, to be honest, we just want to give the fans what they deserve, because they've been through hard times,” said the 25-year-old.

“We've been through as players some hard times, so hopefully we can do something special, and we don't want to let that slip up, because we have a good opportunity to do very good, so now it's just up to us to finish the season strong and take game by game, because we can't let that season slip up.”

He added: “For me, football, when you win two or three games, people are putting you up too much and when you lose two or three games people are putting you down too much as well. It is not because we lost like three games that people can question ourselves, because we've been here for a long time, so now it's just up to us to win that game and make people think over again.”