This appearance was followed up by another in the Fourth Round of the League Cup, this time against Southend United. Lee came on for John O'Shea in the 75th minute, but was unable to rescue the team from a 1–0 loss. Towards the end of the season, United suffered a dearth of defenders, with Mikaël Silvestre, Patrice Evra, Gary Neville and Nemanja Vidić all out through injury at one time or another, so Lee was called into the squad for the matches against Milan and Everton, although he did not play in either game. He finally made his Premier League debut against Chelsea on 9 May 2007. Since the title race had been sewn up the game before, United manager Alex Ferguson was able to select a team of fringe players for the game, including Lee. At the end of the season, in recognition of his fine performances over the preceding 12 months, Lee was awarded the Denzil Haroun Reserve Team Player of the Year award.