KRISTJAAN SPEAKMAN has dismissed suggestions that Tommy Watson “wanted to leave” Sunderland on deadline day, and expressed complete confidence that the winger will make an important contribution to the remainder of the season once he has returned to full fitness.

Watson was the subject of multiple bids from Brighton on transfer-deadline day, but the Premier League club failed to make an offer that Sunderland would have felt compelled to accept.

As a result, the transfer window closed with Watson still on the Black Cats’ books, but there have subsequently been suggestions that the 18-year-old was trying to drive through a departure from the Stadium of Light.

Speakman insists that was never the case, with his subsequent conversations with Watson having further convinced him that the teenager remains fully committed to his hometown club.

“I think it would be really unfair to suggest that the player wanted to leave,” said Sunderland’s sporting director. “Tommy is like a number of young players that we’ve got, where they’re on the up, they’re highly-rated and ambitious, which we want them to be, and then they get presented with an opportunity.

“Ultimately, Tommy didn’t have a decision to make because there wasn’t an agreement between the clubs. If the clubs had agreed, he would have had a decision to make, and you could understand why he would choose to stay, but you could also understand why he might decide to leave. That would be based on his views. But we never got to that point, so it was never really an issue.

“I think Tommy is such a level-headed kid that it’s absolutely not a problem. He’s Sunderland through and through, but he’s also ambitious and wants to get promoted and play in the Premier League with Sunderland. I’ve spoken to him this morning and he’s the usual Tommy Watson – he wants to get back fit and wants to get back to the Stadium of Light, scoring goals.”

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Watson has entered the final 18 months of his current contract, with talks over a possible new deal ongoing.

If there is no further progress in the next few weeks, the situation will be reassessed in the summer, by which time Sunderland will know what division they are playing in next season and some of the other clubs to have made contact over Watson could also be firming up their plans.

While there is the potential for the winger’s value to start to decline as his contract approaches its conclusion, Speakman claims that was never a key consideration in the deadline-day talks with Brighton.

“I don’t think it was a risk,” he said. “Tommy’s got a year left on his contract. At the minute, he’s fully committed to what we’re doing, and there’ll obviously be ongoing conversations about whether he can extend that or whether there’s going to be a moment where a club is able to agree a fee with us.

“We’re just focused on the short term at the minute, trying to make sure that the team is as cohesive as possible. We have to try to navigate these remaining 16 games in the best possible way, and Tommy can have a massive impact on that for us.”

As part of the discussions with Brighton, the possibility of Simon Adingra moving to Wearside was raised. Had that been agreed, there is a chance that Sunderland might have been willing to negotiate on their valuation of Watson. As it was, the lack of a realistic replacement at such a late stage of the window meant there was a firm determination to keep the left winger for the remainder of the season.

Regis Le Bris was adamant he did not want to lose Watson without a replacement in place, and Speakman was fully aligned with the head coach’s view.

“Over the last season, Tommy’s worked himself to be one of two wide-left options in our squad,” he said. “There’s him and Romaine (Mundle), you can’t let one of those players leave without finding a suitable replacement.

“That’s part of our thinking. There’s a trading element within the business of football, which is, ‘If you’re going to trade this player, what other opportunities does that present for you as a club?’

“We look at all those things within it, and that’s ultimately part of the decision-making process as to whether you an accept an offer or not, and whether at a specific moment, you think that offer is the right value to enable you to do something else, or whether you want to hold to a future window.

“We’re really comfortable from a club perspective, and I think the player is really comfortable too because he recognises how good an opportunity Sunderland is at the minute, and he’s fully committed.”