HEARTS manager Robbie Neilson has admitted that only a 'crazy bid' for John Souttar would allow him to part with centre-back.
The Scotland internationalist has been in fine form in Gorgie this season and Rangers have been heavily linked with a move for the 25-year-old, whose contract expires at the end of the season.
With Hearts sitting third in the Premiership, however, Neilson is reluctant to weaken his squad during the January transfer window.
Appearing on the Scarves Around the Funnel podcast, the Tynecastle head coach recalled how Hearts had sold Osman Sow to Chinese club Henan Jianye when he entered the last six months of his deal for £1million in January 2016 during his first stint in the capital.
Neilson says it is a decision that had a significant psychological effect on his squad - and he is determined not to allow history to repeat itself.
"As we’ve said all along, our aim this season is to get European qualification," he explained. "It’s brilliant for the club, brilliant for the fanbase and very lucrative to get into that position.
"If we finish third and either Celtic, Rangers or ourselves win the cup then we get into the play-off round for the Europa League. You win that, it takes you to a different level.
"Even if you don’t win that, you go into the Europa Conference League which, again, is another level. So it’s really important we keep the group together.
"You’ll remember five years ago when we lost Osman Sow. That had a real negative impact, not just in terms of losing the player but on the dressing room, and on the club and fanbase, that we’d lost one of our best players.
"Although we ended up that season finishing third, I felt we struggled to get our feet over the line.
"We have to keep our best players in the team. If that means it’s at the end of the season they go, then it’s the end of the season when they go.
"Unless there’s a crazy bid coming in, but I don’t expect there will be."
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