GARY Rowett refused to comment on speculation around Jed Wallace but hinted if a suitable bid came in this window the club would have to consider it.
Rowett reiterated he wants to keep Wallace, who has a contract offer from the club but is in the last six months of his deal.
Nottingham Forest want to sign Wallace, 27, this month while a report this week claimed Turkish top-flight side Besiktas are aiming to secure the attacker on a pre-contract agreement ahead of next summer.
That latter scenario would mean the Lions receiving no transfer fee for their best player over the last two seasons.
Wallace has scored 10 goals in each of the last two campaigns and has five goals and six assists in 2021-22.
Rowett was asked in his pre-match press conference before the third round of the FA Cup against Crystal Palace on Saturday about the reported interest from Forest and Besiktas and whether he expects Wallace to still be at the club after the end of January’s transfer window.
“I don’t want to necessarily get involved in who’s done what and where we are and whether stories are true or not,” he said.
“I think the key really is, it’s quite simple, Jed has been one of our best players in terms of that forward line certainly over the period that I’ve been here.
“He’s been in double-figures every season, he’s performed fabulously well.
“We made it quite clear early on we wanted to try to extend his contract and try to come to some sort of agreement.
“But any player has the opportunity if they’re out of contract at the end of the season, they have an option to let that roll and see what happens.
“I think that’s really where we’re at.
“He’s an ambitious player. Having sat down and had a conversation with him he wants to play in the Premier League, he wants to play at the top level, the best level that he can. And in some ways you don’t want to stop a player from being ambitious.
“But I’m sure there is going to be lots of different speculation. As a club obviously if we felt we were going to lose someone for nothing at the end of the season and we did have an offer we felt was good business then of course we’d have to think about that.
“That’s out of my remit but the club I’m sure would have to take that into consideration.
“But that’s not our intention and that’s not really how we set out. We want Jed to stay and we’ll see what happens.
“We want to strengthen anyway regardless. We want to try to be ambitious this window and see if we can bring one or two players in, maybe two or three players in.
“We’ve probably got four or five players who have expressed a desire to play more regularly. There will be an opportunity for them to move on and play football.
“If that happens we’ll try to do a little bit more business than we normally would. It’s a good time just to freshen things up a little bit and we certainly want to try to see if we can push a little bit harder for our ultimate ambition which is to get in the top six.”
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