BURNLEY manager Steve Cotterill has insisted Northern Ireland teenager Kyle Lafferty is not for sale.

The 19-year-old has attracted the attention of Championship rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers, with the Midlands club making two separate enquiries.

Both were quickly rebuffed by the Clarets, who also had no hesitation in turning down a £500,000 bid for Lafferty from Scottish giants Celtic in the January transfer window.

"Mick McCarthy phoned me a couple of minutes before the start of the Champions League final," Cotterill explained.

"My words to him were 'I can't believe you're phoning me two minutes before one of the biggest club games in the world!'

"So we had a giggle about it and he said it was only a quick word.

"I listened to his question and my answer back was a quick one. I don't want to sell him.

"He said okay, no problem, I will be back in touch'.

"Since then Jez Moxey (Wolves chief executive) has rung our chairman and he said what I had said, that we don't want to sell him."

But while Cotterill is refusing to part with Lafferty, who signed a new contract last season to tie him to the club until 2010, he knows there is little he can do to prevent interest in his rising star.

"There hasn't been an offer (from Wolves), but I can't stop anyone bidding for a player, whether it's one of my players or someone else's. I can't stop a bid," he said.

"He might like being linked to A, B, C and D. We aren't going to encourage it.

"We don't want to sell because whatever we sell him for now might not be as much as (he would be worth) in two or three years' time, hopefully when he is stronger and scores more goals."

Cotterill has already stated that this summer is an important one in Lafferty's development.

And strength is top of the teenager's individual summer training programme set out by the Clarets boss.

"While he is growing, he has been weak. I wanted him to have a summer off so he could come back stronger," Cotterill said.

"Northern Ireland didn't need to take him for the Under 21 tournament but he has ended up playing all year round, and it was a bit different playing all-year round 20 years ago to what it is now.

"Kyle had a big year last year and, for me, he was thrust into the limelight after getting picked for Northern Ireland, and that's only because they wanted a big centre forward.

"Towards the end of the season he got tired, physically and mentally.

"I know because I see him every day. When that happened he got left out of the Northern Ireland team, but it took three months for them to see that he was tired because they don't see him all the time.

"I'm only interested in Kyle Lafferty, and what's good or bad for him, and at the end of the season I felt he was weak.

"He wanted to play because he's a kid. He's still younger than Chris McCann, and he's a young 19-year-old.

"He's not like Wayne Rooney was when he was 19.

"People mature at different times. But he was more than happy with my decision (to rest him)."