The price is right...
ABERDEEN BOSS McINNES EXPECTS TRIBUNAL TO AGREE WITH THEIR £100,000 VALUATION OF FERGUSON
DEREK McINNES says he is confident a transfer tribunal will find in Aberdeen’s favour next week when they decide how much compensation the Dons should pay Hamilton for Lewis Ferguson. As exclusively revealed by
Sportsmail, the clubs have been at war over the Pittodrie side’s valuation of the 18-year-old midfield man since he moved to the Granite City under freedom of contract in the summer.
Aberdeen have offered £100,000 as compensation for the loss of the dynamic teenager, while Hamilton were believed to have been looking for a fee of £900,000 for a player who made 15 appearances for their first team.
However, after Ferguson made an instant impact at Pittodrie, including a stunning overhead-kick goal against Burnley in the Europa League, it has been reported that the Lanarkshire club are hoping to equal the £1.2million they got when another academy graduate, James McCarthy, moved to Wigan Athletic in 2009.
With the stand-off due to be settled at an SFA tribunal on Monday, Dons boss McInnes believes the panel’s decision will be closer to his club’s valuation than Hamilton’s.
Refusing to be drawn into a public argument yesterday, he said: ‘We have nothing to add, we will speak at the right and proper time.
‘We will have a chance on Monday to put our case across. Will it be closer to our valuation? It will be, I’m pretty sure.’
Accies, for their part, have already insisted that their policy of rearing talented youngsters will suffer a major blow if the tribunal doesn’t match their valuation.
Club chairman Ronnie MacDonald said: ‘If we are doing all this work to produce a Lewis Ferguson, who could be a once-in-ten-years player, the valuation of him has to be realistic otherwise I’m going to think: “Why am I bothering?”.
‘He was in our first team at 17 and someone offers us £100,000 for him — but he’s good enough to play in both games for Aberdeen in the Europa League?’
Meanwhile, McInnes has warned his players there can be no repeat of last season’s disappointments in the domestic cup competitions when Motherwell knocked them out of both.
With the Dons hosting Alan Stubbs’ St Mirren in the last 16 of the Betfred Cup tomorrow, he said: ‘The cups disappointed us last season and that hit home hard. Against Motherwell we made uncharacteristic mistakes and got what we deserved as a team.
‘In the league you can make up for bad performances but in the cup you’re either in or out.
‘So we have to bring a strong performance this weekend because it’s very important for us to do well in the cups.
‘St Mirren are a good side and have had a bounce from going up, the club has a feelgood factor around it. They will bring a big support and we know it’s going to be a test.’
Tommie Hoban, Scott McKenna, Greg Tansey and Mark Reynolds all miss the tie through injury while Shay Logan completes a three-game suspension.
New loan striker James Wilson is expected to make his debut after recovering from an injury picked up while playing for Manchester United’s Under23s against Fulham last week.