Norwich City midfielder Wes Hoolahan has reportedly been the subject of a £1.5m bid from Paul Lambert's Aston Villa.

The Mirror claimed on Friday evening the Villans' had launched a move for the Canaries' midfield schemer earlier in the day with Lambert keen to draft in experienced reinforcements in the January transfer window to help his young squad. Hoolahan was a key member of Lambert's League One and Championship-promotion winning sides at Carrow Road and the Republic of Ireland international is a firm fans' favourite in Norfolk.

The 31-year-old has returned to the starting line up over the festive period after a bit-part role during the earlier part of the campaign and is expected to be in Chris Hughton's squad for Saturday's FA Cup third round home tie against Fulham. The Dubliner signed a three-and-a-half year contract extension in December 2012 and is the club's longest-serving player after joining from Blackpool back in 2008.

Hughton was forced to dismiss speculation surrounding firm interest from Lambert's club only on Tuesday, when he reiterated the Canaries are not interested in selling their established stars.

'I don't know anything about those reports,' he said. 'The talk normally around this time is of players coming in and that generally is all we are interested in. You can never anticipate what deals happen in a window but our focus is on decisions we need to make regarding players coming in, certainly not going out. I expect to be busy with phone calls and watching plenty of DVDs, but we will only do anything if it's right or within our structure. It's making sure we cover all bases. If it is right for us in any position of the squad to strengthen to secure ourselves going into the end of the season, we will do, but we won't bring players in for the sake of it and those are the assessments we make.'