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Jeremain Lens says he does not want to return to Sunderland because he feels at home at Fenerbahce.

The winger is on a season-long in Turkey after disappointing in his first season of English football.

The move to Fenerbahce is paying dividends for Lens, who has been reunited with Dick Advocaat, the coach who brought him to Wearside. In the last week Lens scored the winning goal in his side’s Europa League victory over Manchester United, and was recalled by the Netherlands.

Lens is in the squad for the upcoming friendly with Belgium and World Cup qualifier against Luxembourg.

Speaking about Sunderland to Voetball International, Lens said: “I feel I no longer belong there. If Fenerbahce want me, I want to stay.

“I am not happy at Sunderland. I have friends within this (Fenerbahce) team, my relationships with my team-mates are excellent.”

In seven matches for Fenerbahce, Lens has already scored almost as many goals for them as he did in 24 appearances for the Black Cats. Lens has two goals and four assists for Fenerbahce, as opposed to three and three with Sunderland.

(Image: 2016 Getty Images)

The final match of last season, a dead rubber at Watford where Lens scored one goal and made another, was the only instance of him playing 90 minutes for the Black Cats since Advocaat resigned as manager in October 2015.

But he has rediscovered his form and confidence since working with his compatriot once more. The Yellow Canaries have won six of the games he has featured in.

The better Lens can do in Turkey, the better for his parent club.

The 28-year-old looked ill-suited to English football but would not be the first player to look in a different class either side of spells in the Premier League. Signed at a cost of £8m in July 2015, Lens looked like adding to the depressingly long list of expensive flops Sunderland have signed in the Premier League era, but his form with Fenerbahce suggests the Black Cats might at least be able to recoup a decent amount of their investment.

Premier League wages, however, will be out of the reach of Fenerbahce and all but a handful of continental clubs, so the Wearsiders will no doubt have to subsidise the shortfall if he moves on before the end of his Stadium of Light contract, which runs until 2019.

The ideal situation for Sunderland would be if Fenerbahce tried to sign Lens in January, rather than risk losing him at the end of his loan spell.

Bottom of the table and with only one win from their opening 11 league games, David Moyes’ squad clearly needs improving when the transfer window opens but with debts in the region of £140m and Ellis Short a vocal proponent of financial fair play, new faces will only be possible if others can be moved on.

(Image: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images)

Croatia defender Domagoj Vida is the latest to be linked with a move. Although Sunderland were not prepared to pay the £10m Dynamo Kiev were asking in the summer, that price has now dropped with the 27-year-old having less than two years remaining on his contract.

The Black Cats are reported to have scouted Kiev’s midweek Champions League defeat to Benfica.

Despite his obvious quality Jermain Defoe’s age means he would not bring in much in the transfer market, leaving Lamine Kone and Jordan Pickford as two of the squad’s few saleable assets. In Tuesday’s Journal Don Hutchison says the Wearsiders should not countenance selling their Washington-born goalkeeper even if Vito Mannone has returned from injury by then.

Kone has looked a distracted figure since the Wearsiders headed off interest from Everton in August, hence the talk of a move for Vida being revived.

Lens played at the 2014 World Cup but the only previous cap he won as a Sunderland player came in last season’s Euro 2016 qualifier at home to the Czech Republic.