Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes is adamant Kenny McLean will remain at Pittodrie this season after a £300,000 bid for the midfielder from Rangers was rejected.
The Ibrox side’s offer for the Scotland international fell well below Aberdeen’s valuation of the 25-year-old, who has entered the final year of his contract.
The Dons paid St Mirren £275,000 for McLean in February 2015 but McInnes says there is no chance of the midfielder moving to Ibrox during this transfer window.
He said: “A bid was made for Kenny but it was rejected like we had already said it would be.
“No player will be leaving here this summer, I have been given certain assurances about that.
“We feel enough players have left recently, so we are trying to bring in people now. We don’t need to sell and we are not going to sell.
“Kenny is relaxed about it, he’s under contract here and he’s more than comfortable with it. We are looking forward to the season with Kenny in our team.”
McInnes, meanwhile, was delighted to secure one of his top transfer targets yesterday by completing a season-long loan deal for Birmingham City attacker Greg Stewart.
The Dons manager had tried to bring the player from Dundee to Pittodrie last summer but lost out to Birmingham, who paid £500,000 for the forward.
Stewart struggled to establish himself as a first-team player at St Andrews but McInnes is confident the 27-year-old will prove to be a valuable asset for the Dons during the upcoming campaign.
The Aberdeen manager said: “Like Greg Tansey, I don’t always get players when I want them but I get them in the end.
“When he played against us he was always someone I felt we had to be careful of. He brought a lot of quality to Dundee, with his assists and his goals, and that’s something I feel we will need.
“We need goals from other areas of the pitch, as well as from Adam Rooney in the middle.
“He had a difficult time at Birmingham, he had three managers last season and that couldn’t have been easy for him. But he’s come to a place now where he can concentrate on just being him, playing football.
“We are delighted to get him in. We are working on one or two other things and hopefully we’ll get one or two other targets in the next week or so.”