CARLTON will not rush into negotiating a long-term contract with Brendan Fevola despite the full-forward's stellar start to the season.

Coach Brett Ratten would not be drawn on media reports suggesting the club was reticent to offer Fevola a multi-year deal in the aftermath of the late night incident that saw him censured by the club at the start of the season.

"He's a required player at our club and he's playing great footy," Ratten said from Princes Park on Wednesday.

"We haven't sat down for negotiations with Brendan at the moment. Steven Icke (football manager) will sit down with Brendan's manager ... down the track. When that is, we'll just wait and see.

"He looks pretty good up there [at full-forward] and I’d rather him in the team than out of the team, [but] we’ll just wait and see, let the football do the talking and we’ll just concentrate on what we have to do as a team."

Fevola, 27, was removed from the leadership group and has the threat of immediate dismissal hanging over his head if he were to re-offend this season.

"That's still there, that's not going to be removed," Ratten replied when asked if the player's form warranted a reprieve.

"[But] since I’ve been at the club … other than that, he hasn’t put a foot wrong."

Fevola has kicked 26 goals in the first five games of the season to be in a three-way tussle with Hawthorn’s Lance Franklin and the Brisbane Lions’ Darren Bradshaw for this year’s Coleman Medal.

Ratten has been delighted, but not surprised by his form.

"I always thought when we got into the games he would play some very good football because his pre-season was outstanding," he said.

"The misdemeanour, as was documented, has been his one hiccup and he’s got the penalty hanging over his head, but his pre-season was outstanding in the way he went about it on and off the field."

But while Ratten was happy to acknowledge the excellent play of his mercurial forward, he said there was more to his side’s two wins in the past fortnight than one man.

"It’s not about the individuals and that’s what we can get caught up in," he said.

"I suppose full-forwards do kick a lot of goals but, as we saw against Essendon, we had six players that played outstanding football and the rest didn’t. They were really below par and if you don’t get a team performance you can’t win the game.

"It doesn’t matter how good your players are - if everyone doesn’t contribute, you can’t win.

"Brendan’s part of that, he’s one player as is Chris Judd, Jarrad Waite, Heath Scotland, Nick Stevens the whole lot. If they don’t contribute we can’t win the game."