ABERDEEN have rejected an offer of £500,000 from Cardiff City for forward Jonny Hayes, with manager Derek McInnes remaining defiant that the Irishman will not be sold at a bargain price.
The Championship club tabled a bid on Thursday for the 29-year-old, who still has until next summer on his current contract, but it was knocked back straight away by the Pittodrie board.
Hayes has been one of Aberdeen’s most prominent players under McInnes over the last three years. Initially brought in from Inverness by Craig Brown, he has racked up more than 300 appearances and has helped the team from the north east to two consecutive second-place finishes in the Ladrbokes Premiership, a League Cup triumph in 2015, scoring 51 goals along the way.
“If clubs have the same opinion of Jonny that I do then that falls way short of where we see him,” said McInnes, speaking at the club’s winter break hotel on the outskirts of Dubai. “So we stay as we are and we move on.
“I’ll talk through with Jonny the reasons why we have rejected the bid and I don’t think he’ll be too surprised by our decision.”
The Aberdeen manager underlined his intention to keep hold of Hayes to maintain the potent frontline of him, Niall McGinn and Adam Rooney. However, if Neil Warnock’s Cardiff are to lure him to Wales, McInnes is sure that they will have to move on their initial offer.
“Cardiff are in the market for a wide player and I think they’ve tried to go down a few different avenues to get one,” he said. “But they’re going to have to show a bit more willingness if they want to get Jonny Hayes.
“He is such a key player for us. I don’t want to lose any player in the January window. If we’re going to lose players I’d much prefer it to be at the end of the season when I’d have time to make better decisions to get people in.
“But that’s why in January managers make a lot of rash decisions. But we won’t be rushed into something we don’t want to do.”
It is a key time in the life of the Irishman. Turning 30 this summer, his next move may very well be the biggest of his career in terms of prestige, and, of course, salary. It is a premise not lost on his manager.
“A lot of the conversations I’ve had with the players is about trying to get on and better themselves financially,” he added. “I have got to know the players in and out and have become close with them. I know their families and their situations.
“So there is that part of it. But we also have to look after Aberdeen as a club. We’re midway through a season still with so much to play for.”
Hayes is a popular character among this close-knit Aberdeen group, and the man perhaps closest to him is fellow countryman Rooney.
Going back to way beyond the days where they used to stand side-by-side on a football pitch wearing an Inverness jersey, the Dubliner is understandably reluctant to lose not just a team-mate he has forged a footballing understanding with, but a friend and room-mate he’s become fond of over the years.
He said: “To be fair me and Jonny normally room together with Ireland. Or Niall or Jonny isn’t here I’m usually stuck with one of them!”
“I think you have to take everything into consideration when you’re going to move clubs. It’s not always a case of going to a different league and everyone thinking it’s a better league so let’s go there and see what happens. A lot of your time in football, because there is so much time off, is away from the ground and the training ground, it’s your life around the place. Jonny has a young family so you have to be settled and happy where you are, outside of football. If you’re not you won’t perform to the level you can.
"I think Jonny is very settled in Aberdeen and that’s probably why he has performed so well. But if there is that much interest in him that’s something he has to think about. Whatever he does, all the best to him because I don’t think he owes anyone anything really he’s performed really well for Aberdeen so if it is the case they are in for him and they offer a great deal and he couldn’t say no, he thought it was best for him, fair play and good luck to him. But I don’t think he’s desperate to get away from here.”
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