Aston Villa chief Paul Faulkner has confirmed interest in Nurnberg midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake.
Villa did approach the Bundesliga club about the Japanese playmaker earlier in the transfer window, but have not followed up their initial interest.
Faulkner told fans in a webchat: "No. We did make an enquiry about the player, but only the sort of enquiry that we make about lots of players during a transfer window.
"For some reason - and I have no idea why - his club decided to make that public, but the fact is that our interest never went beyond that initial enquiry."
