Chris Hughton believes in-demand young Birmingham winger Nathan Redmond should stay at St Andrew's to further his development as a player.
Redmond is 17 and has played only a handful of games including the 0-0 home draw with Wolves in the FA Cup - but is already being linked with the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.
Hughton can understand someone of Redmond's talent attracting attention but believes he is best served learning his trade at Birmingham. He said: "With a young player like Nathan, there is always speculation. He's a young talent and he would be no different to any young talent at any club.
"His name is going to get mentioned and he is developing well here. In the games he's played, you can see what he is. He is a 17-year-old player that is still developing his game with the good and bad. There were periods against Wolves when he was up against good Premier League players when he couldn't get his own way.
"That's what will happen with him. His best place to continue developing is here.''
In an ideal world, Hughton would not have wanted a replay - on January 17 - with Blues still playing catch-up in the Championship after their Europa League exploits.
He said: "At this moment, we are still in the FA Cup. It's where we want to be. But we could have done without the extra fixture with the amount of games we've got coming up.
"It is a strain on the squad that we've got but we have to work around that one. Even if you take a cup run out of the equation, we've certainly got enough games.
"We go through a period in a few weeks of seven games in 25-26 days. ''Irrespective of the cup run, the whole squad will have to be used over that period. It will be impossible for players to play every single one of those games.''
Hughton took over last summer after the squad had been broken up following relegation and knows he is at the mercy of any predators during January. But he insists he has had no offers for defender Liam Ridgewell and is hoping to re-sign on-loan striker Chris Wood from the Baggies.
Hughton said: "There will be speculation but at this moment we've not had one inquiry for Liam. As for Chris, at this moment, he is a West Brom player. He's gone back to West Brom. His loan has finished.
"But we've been in regular communication with West Brom and he is one we'd like to bring back.''
