Derek McInnes insists Aberdeen's Scott McKenna goes nowhere

Aberdeen received two bids from Hull City over the weekend for their impressive young centre-back Scott McKenna but both were rejected and manager Derek McInnes insisted after yesterday's ill-tempered friendly defeat in Dubai that the player will be going nowhere. Not this month anyway.

Aberdeen have rejected two bids by Hull city for Scott McKenna. Picture: SNS.

McKenna, 21, has forged a terrific partnership with Kari Arnason at the heart of the Dons defence since breaking into the team earlier this season and he’s been gathering admirers along the way.

But he’s under contract at Pittodrie until October 2021 and, despite concrete interest from English Championship side Hull, McInnes says it’s too early for McKenna, pictured, to think about moving on.

“There’s been two bids from Hull but the second one is just restructured,” said the Aberdeen boss. “He’s not for sale in January – I’m not looking to move any of my players. McKenna will move at some point but it won’t be January.

“He signed a four-year deal and I firmly believe he’ll go and prove his worth. We’ll sell him at a top fee and the offer was well off what we think he’s worth. We’ve got a plan for him and he’s got a plan for himself – we want to get him in the Scotland set-up and for him to play 100-150 games before we think about moving him on.

“If any more offers come in they’ll be wasting their time, certainly this month. For me he’s money in the bank. He’ll get sold at some point but 
certainly not in January.”

With one eye firmly on Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie against St Mirren, McInnes was glad to get through yesterday’s 2-0 defeat by Uzbekistani club Lokomotiv Tashkent with no serious injuries. Especially in the first half, tackles were flying at the Jebel Ali Centre of Excellence as goals from Islom Tukhtakhujaev and Sherzodbek Karimov won it for the Asian Champions League side.

“I said to their manager we needed to settle down and he agreed,” said McInnes.