Nuno and Laurie Dalrymple on Helder Costa's Wolves future

Speculation surrounding the 23-year-old's future is likely to rumble on all summer with a host of Premier League and European clubs believed to be tracking him.

Santo is fully well aware of Costa's talent. He said: "I believe that new projects, strong projects, must be built with good players.

"Costa is a good player. The club has its ideas and knows how well it performed last year. I believe, it is my own feelings, that new things must be built around good players. I have not spoken to him. It will be a club decision.

"In this day, he is a Wolves player."

Managing director Laurie Dalrymple echoed those thoughts and said that any buyout clause Costa did or didn't have wasn't a factor.

“No, I don’t think that’s a consideration," he said. "It’ll purely come down to, if someone comes in with an offer that’s far too good in our position that we cannot afford to turn down.

“That’s not a consideration (buyout).” We obviously feel he’s a very valuable asset. The only reason we wouldn’t keep hold of that asset would be if it was in the club’s interest from a financial point of view.

“And it’s about filling someone of his ability within that position.

“We want to build a team around the best players we’ve got.

“I can’t sit here and definitely say he’s going absolutely nowhere because I don’t know what’s around the corner in four weeks’ time.

“We’re a football club in the Championship, we haven’t been in the Premier League for five seasons and we have very different financial pressures that a lot of other clubs in this league don’t have. We have to keep that in perspective. But do I want him to go? Absolutely not."

With fellow Portuguese Nuno now in charge at Molineux, does Dalrymple believe that will make Costa want to stay with Wolves in the Championship?

“Helder has integrated extremely well in terms of the club, his team mates, England, the league, so there’s no direct immediate benefit in that Nuno’s here so we can get Helder in a warm cosy place," Dalrymple said.

“In the last six months we’ve seen Helder blossom, prior to Nuno’s arrival.

“Does it help that he’s a Portuguese coach? It’s not going to be a negative.”