Derek McInnes has much on his mind.
The need to guide his Aberdeen side past Chikhura Sachkhere in their Europa League tie at Pittodrie tonight might top his list of priorities, but the potential loss to English football of his star defender Scott McKenna within the next week, sits uneasily in his psyche.
Bids of £3million each from Championship clubs, Queens Park Rangers and Nottingham Forest, have been rejected. However, McInnes doesn’t expect the interest in the Scotland defender to subside.
On the contrary; it will intensify, he reckons.
“There is a week to go in the window in England so it will all start to heat up now,” he insisted.
READ MORE: No Betfred Cup hangover for Hearts, insists Craig Levein
“There is a real possibility that clubs will come back in and every chance there could be more clubs than have been in for him already. We are not encouraging offers but we anticipate there will be other ones.”
Previous valuations of the 22-year-old centre-back’s worth in the market were put at £10m by McInnes, but he appeared to step back from that sum by leaving such fiscal issues with chairman Stewart Milne and his board of directors.
Attempts by Celtic to persuade the Dons to part with the player for £3.5m last season and a January bid of £6.5m from Aston Villa, were also brushed away.
McInnes now refuses to be pinned down on the kind of cash he would expect a buyer to have to pay, although inside the club there is the feeling that inevitable add-ons in any deal could sway matters.
“The valuation hasn’t been met as it stands,” he said, “so that’s something I have to leave them to sort out because it’s not me who decides those things.
“I have a high opinion of Scott, I think he’s the best defender this country has and he’ll get to 50 caps pretty quickly.
“He’s got a lot of attributes and still a lot to learn, but if someone is going to learn, it will be him.
“But it’s not my opinion that matters when someone is going to buy him.
“We have had this situation before with our league and have seen so many players go down to England where there valuation has increased pretty quickly.
READ MORE: Motherwell kids reap what we sow, says captain Peter Hartley
“Sometimes people have just played a handful of games and it has shot up. Look at Virgil van Dijk, once he was in a Southampton strip he was worth a lot more than they paid for him.
“John McGinn at Villa is another and then you have Kenny McLean at Norwich. So you can see why Celtic are digging their heels in over Kieran Tierney because he will be the same if he goes down there.”
Whatever happens with McKenna, Aberdeen have a need for a new defender
– perhaps before their Premiership opener against Hearts at Pittodrie on Sunday – because of injuries to Ash Taylor, hurt in the first 1-1 leg of the Europa League qualifier against Chikhura in Tblisi last week and Mikey Devlin, both suffering hamstring problems.
Meanwhile, Ryan Hedges, a Manchester United fan, who was forced to fill-in as a left-back for the second half of that game, hopes he doesn’t have to occupy that position again as he begins to appreciate why so much was made of Sir Alex Ferguson’s eight years in charge at Pittodrie.
“I’ve not really played there at all before in my career,” he said, “but if the gaffer asks me to do a job I’ll do it to the best of my ability. I have dabbled as a left-back when I was a kid. As long as it’s not a regular feature I’m happy to help out.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel