Sheffield Wednesday: Carlos Carvalhal relaxed over Kieran Lee's future

It has emerged over the last 48 hours that the Black Cats have been closely monitoring Lee, who bagged his fourth goal of the campaign in Saturday’s 2-0 triumph at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

It is believed that Sunderland, who are bottom of the Premier League, have watched Lee several times in recent weeks.

But Carvalhal, speaking at his press briefing yesterday, said: “ I don’t know nothing about it, it’s news to me.

“A lot of things must happen for a player to leave the club. He must want, first. The club must want, another club must pay, they must agree. There’s a lot of things to do to move a player and it’s not easy to move a player from Sheffield Wednesday, because we are not selling players.

“I am not concerned about nothing. I am happy when other clubs are interested in my players, especially big clubs, or the clubs in the Premier, but nothing more than this. Something that I know is that Kieran Lee likes working with us and he likes being at Sheffield Wednesday. It is not easy to move a player who is happy.”

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Lee extended his Owls contract last July, committing his long-term future to the club until 2019.

“One of the things a coach must do is to try and improve the players,” said Carvalhal. “We try to improve them so we are very happy when our players are learning different things in football. I’m very proud and the consequences of improving the players individually and collectively is there are a lot of benefits to everybody. The valueof the club is more high and teams look to are players. It is the consequence of us doing well. If we weren’t doing well, nobody would want our players.”

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Carvalhal said he received a “lot of offers” from other clubs in England and abroad after leading Wednesday to the brink of promotion last May.

“I had a lot of offers,” he said. “It is normal as I did very good work. I was at the end of my contract so it was more easy for me to leave the club. I achieved the play-offs. It’s not fantastic but it’s very good. We built a team and I could have left and gone to another place.

“Some of my friends said ‘maybe it is a good time to leave as it is more difficult now as the expectations will be more high and maybe you will have problems next season.’ But I never felt like that.

“I have a big respect for Sheffield Wednesday and my chairman. I wanted to stay as I still have work to do here. I’m happy here as I like the fans and the club. I love my players. I enjoy being in Sheffield.

“I didn’t think about moving even when clubs contacted me. I had in my head that I wanted to stay. Why move if you are happy? It doesn’t make any sense. It is not about money to stay at the club. I’m not rich but I have my independence.”

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