' Cardiff City Warned / We want more

Aberdeen have told Cardiff they want more than £500,000 for Jonny Hayes.

Derek McInnes warns Cardiff that Jonny Hayes won't leave Aberdeen on the cheap



Daily Mail



Thursday 12th Jan 2017




Neil Warnock spoke to McInnes over the phone about Aberdeen winger Hayes


Derek McInnes on Wednesday night warned Cardiff that he won’t let Jonny Hayes leave Aberdeen on the cheap.

And the Dons boss has also come out fighting in the battle to keep Northern Ireland winger Niall McGinn.

Bracing himself for a formal written offer of £500,000 for Hayes from the English Championship club following a phone call from manager Neil Warnock, a defiant McInnes vowed to do all he can to keep his star players.



‘I had Neil Warnock phone me at the back end of last week and we had a conversation about Jonny,’ said the Pittodrie boss on the first day of his team’ s training break in Dubai. ‘He said he had cast a net with four or five wide players potentially and Jonny could be one of them.

‘For three-and-a-half years, Jonny has been a brilliant performer for me. You never want to deny your players opportunities to move on and better themselves on the financial side of it - and I think there will be a time for Jonny and others potentially to go.

‘But January isn’t the window where you want to be doing business and losing players.

‘We don’t need to lose players, we don’t need to sell our players, but like everything else if an offer comes in that really blows you away then we’d look at it like any club would.’

With 18 months left on Hayes’ contract, Sportsmail understands Cardiff are willing to structure a deal which could see Aberdeen make £1million if certain targets are met.

Neil Warnock spoke to McInnes over the phone about Aberdeen winger Hayes

However, wary of letting a key player go at a time when it’s hard to sign a replacement, McInnes added: ‘We are wanting to try to go and win a Scottish Cup and trying to finish second, which will be a challenge in itself. This is a window where we want to try and add. We don’t need to sell. We are debt-free.

‘I quite like the fact Neil picked the phone up because I am quite a traditionalist that way, a manager should go through a manager and it doesn’t really happen all the time, especially in England.

‘But we had a chat and we rate Jonny very highly. He’s integral for us to try and achieve our objectives and January is not a window where we want to sell any of our players, and certainly not our best players.’

McInnes also took a call from Hearts director of football Craig Levein concerning McGinn last week, but believes he will re-sign for Aberdeen if he stays in Scotland.

‘Craig Levein confirmed he was intending to speak to Niall’s representative, I’ m not surprised at that,’ said McInnes.

McInnes believes that winger Niall McGinn will re-sign for Aberdeen if he stays in Scotland
McInnes believes that winger Niall McGinn will re-sign for Aberdeen if he stays in Scotland

‘But Niall has shown a real warmth for being at Aberdeen, a club he has served so well. He’s been absolutely fantastic. I’d be very surprised if Niall chooses to stay in Scotland and it’s not at Aberdeen. That doesn’t stop Hearts trying to persuade him otherwise.’

McGinn was absent when Aberdeen arrived in Dubai early on Wednesday, granted an extra week at home to rest up following his Euro 2016 exertions.

‘It’s been ongoing with Niall for a while,’ said McInnes. ‘We’ve spoken several times about the potential to extend and he’s never said “no” to us. He just said he’d like to look at it in January again.

‘I had agreed with Niall in September when the winter break was confirmed that he could have extra time this month. He didn’t have to come to the training camp.

‘The boy needs a break and I think we will really get the benefit of that in the second half of the season.’

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Well if that's him I suggest he stops wearing his sister's gym stuff.
Looks very light weight to me Warnock will have more players on his radar.
I just wish he had more money to spend because I think he's the right manager to spend it I hope he gets a fair crack at it at some point with funds at mo he's had nothing from city.

What he said is code for"offer the right money and he's yours"

To me that article says, "he's your player for the right price". Giving the poor standard of the SPL, where even runaway leaders Celtic probably are no better than a mid table Championship side, then £500,000 is about right.

we wont get him for 500k its going to be more like 750k rising to 1m dependant on appearances and if we stay up and possibly if we get promotion next yr

Be interesting to see if City do offer more as Neil Warnock wants him and it's been made public he wants him.

We probably put in a low bid, who knows how much it was, no one puts in a bid for what you actually want to pay.

He doesn't look any better then what we have

He doesn't look any better then what we have

he looks a lot more direct than anyone we have imo

He doesn't look any better then what we have

Not many are at this level, however, if you factor consistency into your calculations you have your answer.

Both pilks and noone are direct they can't track back us the problem and intercept and Hayes looks no different ... we need somone that can hold the ball on the lines and put some decent balls in