Southampton executive director Les Reed has revealed that the club are close to appointing a new manager.

The Saints have been looking for a new boss since Mauricio Pochettino left to take the helm at Tottenham Hotspur after 18 months in charge at St Mary's Stadium.

Dutchman Ronald Koeman, Neil Lennon - who has recently resigned from Celtic - and former Spurs chief Tim Sherwood have all been linked with the vacancy.

Reed has claimed that Southampton had plenty of interest in the post and have now whittled their search down to four, with an announcement on who will succeed Pochettino expected "sooner rather than later".

"We are closing in now on our preferred candidate," Reed told Southampton's YouTube channel. "When it was actually announced that Mauricio was leaving we were inundated with enquiries but by and large we were amazed by the level of applicant who wanted to show interest in the job.

"We had possibly six to 10 candidates on our ongoing research list. We were delighted that by the time we got down to the final four, all four of them had been on our list originally.

"Things are going well and I'm hoping – what takes time with these things is the paperwork – but I'm hoping that we can get that sorted very quickly and the fans will be excited about an announcement coming up sooner rather than later."

Saints have insisted that they will not sell any of their sought-after players until a new manager is in place.