MALCOLM Shotton has issued a "hands-off" warning to clubs tracking Oxford United's leading scorer Joey Beauchamp.

After hearing of national paper reports that Bolton were interesed in taking the £1.5m rated winger, Shotton declared: "I've not even spoken to Colin Todd."

And he insisted: "At the end of the day he's not going anywhere. He's got a job to do here.

"I don't have to sell and we're looking now to build."

Beauchamp, 27 on Friday, scored the winner in Shotton's first game in charge, against Portsmouth, and has struck vital goals in the two away wins at Nottingham Forest and Manchester City in the past few weeks.

"He's scored 15 goals this season - that's a great return," said United's manager. "He's quality all over, not just on the pitch but on the training ground where he works hard and he's a pleasure to have around.

"Joey's got that ability to go and hurt people. And he's exciting to watch . . . he runs at people, he's a good passer and got good delivery with his crosses. He's an important player for us and I'm not going to disrupt everything just to make a few bob for the club."

Throughout the season Blackburn, Leeds and Coventry have had Beauchamp watched. Coventry have been a very interested party. Gordon Strachan is a big admirer and is resigned to losing winger John Salako who has turned down the offer of a new contract.

Beauchamp would be an ideal replacement but Coventry would have to sell first as no more money has been made available.

With Bolton looking as though they will drop down to Division 1, they are unlikely to appeal to Beauchamp in any case.

Shotton believes there's nothing wrong in the player still harbouring strong hopes of playing in the Premiership. "All players have got to have ambition to go and play at a higher level," Shotton stated. "I certainly have, and my coaching staff Mark Harrison and Mickey Lewis have.

"If there are players here who haven't got that ambition they're not coming with me. I'm not interested in having players who are just going to sit around and pick up money."

Beauchamp said: "I'm very happy here and I'm happy to keep playing, whatever happens in the future.

"Hopefully I will play at the top level and if it's with Oxford then great, that would be my dream. But I'm just happy to keep playing and if the team keeps playing as well as it's doing at the moment, maybe next season we'll be challenging for promotion, you never know."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.