Saints executive director Les Reed is the club’s football powerbroker.

He oversees the hiring and firing of managers, the club’s recruitment policy and the direction of the football side of things from the top to the bottom.

The Daily Echo’s chief sports writer Adam Leitch met him in his Staplewood office for a half term report on this season.

Here is what he had to say, starting with the January transfer window…

Les Reed on transfer talk surrounding Virgil van Dijk…

Virgil is not for the sale.

We haven’t had any bids and if we got any bids we wouldn’t consider them because it just doesn’t make sense to think we would release Virgil van Dijk in midseason when we have still got, we believe, all to play for.

There haven’t been any enquiries but certainly the status of him at the moment is that he is simply not for sale.

Les Reed on Saints’ January transfer policy…

The way we operate in the transfer windows has always been the same.

January is a very difficult window because it’s a panic window, and players who are available in January are available for a reason.

Unless you are going to break all kinds of transfer records, or you’re the type of club that has the finances to do that, whatever you do you are going to pay over the top and probably for a player you would rather not have because the guy you want is not going to be available.

Our focus is that we don’t panic and we are not tempted to patch things up, but we do have a situation where if an opportunity did arise and we could improve the squad then we would consider it on its merits at the time.

We have a consistent 1,000 players on our database churning over that we are monitoring 365 days a year, so it’s not like we come to a window and go ‘right, who’s around?’

We know what we would like to do to improve this squad, both for now and from now on for the next few years, but it’s always a question of availability, and availability at the right price, and whether the player would come to the club.

Les Reed on whether transfer policy is dictated by potential Chinese investment in the club…

No. As I explained is exactly how we operate and we will continue to do that.

There is no other influence on us other than our own ambition and our own ability to get out of the January transfer window what we can.

It may be nothing because as I explained it is such a difficult window, and usually players are available because they are not wanted and therefore we don’t want to buy somebody else’s problems for a short term fix. We want to invest in our long term future.

If we can do that in January we are open minded to it. If we can’t we are not just going to throw money at something because we lost three games and feel we need to be seen to doing something.

You won’t see us on Sky Sports saying we are bidding for every player around the country and then land nobody.

If we do anything we will do our business quietly, under the radar, as we did with Charlie (Austin) last year. That’s our method, that’s our model, it hasn’t changed and it’s not going to change.