"The bottom line is, as I have said all along, that I would like to keep Jermain, build the side, and have him part of it - he is a young player and he is exciting," he says as the open Premiership transfer window gets nearer the half way stage.
"That hypothetical situation hasn't arisen so there is no answer to that because we have had no bid for him.
"But it is obvious that there needs to be changes here; we are in the first division and we have to face that fact.
"We have the highest wage bill so we have to move players around and we aren't getting too many calls about our players.
"So you have to be patient as a manager and wait for your time, while getting the best out of what you have got.
"That is my immediate aim here and we have to show more consistency with the players we have got, and there are periods in games where we lose the plot - especially at home.
"On Saturday they had a good 10 minutes and ended up scoring two goals in those 10 minutes and I'm afraid we can't afford that at any level.
"You don't need to hawk Jermain around; everyone knows where he is although probably not everyone knows how good he is.
"My point is that I don't go on to managers and say to them 'come and get Jermain, I'd like to use the money' - that is nonsense.
"I am just sitting here trying to manage the team as best I can and we have problems; everyone can see that.
"But at the moment the Jermain 'issue' is not an issue because he is a West Ham player and there has been no enquiry for him as yet."
Jermain is two games through a five match ban - his third, unfortunately, of the season - and Alan adds:
"It is difficult for him, he is a little bit frustrated - he is at an age where he just wants to play.
"He is having to sit it out and we badly missed him on Saturday as we missed Tomas as well - they are really positive forces in our team and we can't afford to get suspensions with the squad we have got.
"Both of them have had bad disciplinary records at this club and they both need to sit down and make sure it doesn't happen again while they have got this time out.
"We have had a lot of games without J in the team and we haven't done particularly great so losing him will obviously be a problem to us in this spell."