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McInnes keen to talk in a bid to keep McLean at Pittodrie
The Ibrox club have been told any bid for the playmaker would be point less with McInnes promised no sales as part of his agreement to stay at the club.
And despite McLean’s deal entering its final year, the manager isn’t resigned to losing him even next summer.
He said: “It’s very important that we do all we can, keeping players who have done wel l for me happy – that’s as good a me s sa ge a s br i n g i n g in new signings.
“Joe Lewis was one we indicated we’d like to try to deliver and once we got the encouragement from him we found we were closer to an agreement than we maybe thought at the outset.
“I’d love to speak to Kenny and one or two others now, going into the last year of their contracts. But while they’re here and under contract we’ll tryto get full value from them, as we did with the boys who have left.
“Right to the end they brought in big performances. All we can do is try to create an environment where they want to hang about for a bit longer.”
It’s a summer McInnes insists will be a rebirth for the Dons rather than the death of a team. After losing five key players from his f irst team, he has already p i c k ed up Greg Stewart, Greg Tansey and Ryan Christie with Shaun Maloney expected to sign in the coming days.
And the manager insisted: “We might have felt a wee bit of pain but it’s good to freshen things up at times since you could possibly name eight, nine, maybe even 10 starters in my team every week.
“That has probably been the case for four years now so I’m certainly not fazed by the fact we’re going to give it a wee jag this season and a bit of freshness if we get the players in that we want.
“They will come here and really look forward to playing in Europe this season, getting established in the Aberdeen team and winning things for the club.
“It’s how you deal with losing players that matters – you can roll over and feel sorry for yourself and make excuses. Or you live with it, realise we tried to keep them but couldn’t for different reasons, then go and get good players who you really want to work with and you start afresh.
“If we can see it through, and the focus is on myself and the board to deliver those players, I am confident we can maintain the standards we’ve set.”
McInnes has set ambitious targets for his team after snubbing a move to Sunderland, and shrugged off the idea that Rangers are targeting their downfall.
He added: “I would love to get into the group
I want to be competitive in the league and to win at least one cup
stage of the Europa League – for me that would be very important.
“I want us to be competitive in the league and I want to win at least one cup. So there is still plenty to be done.
“Challenges will come from all over. Hearts were quite forthright last season about wanting to finish above us, for example.
“And we finished 30 points ahead of them.
“I don’t think we can be too concerned about what others look to do. We just have to be pleased with our own work. “We’re trying to do as much right – all the little percentages – to give ourselves little advantages. “O t he r s have the advantage in terms of size of support and wealth, we try to be better in other areas that will help us stay ahead.
“We managed to maintain our standards and finish second last season when a couple of clubs were quite vocal about that not being the case. I’m sure there will be an expectancy of the same thing again this season.
“For Rangers, f inishing just above Aberdeen – I’m sure that probably wouldn’t be good enough. They’ll have their own ambitions.
“Celtic are on a different level. Rangers have far more resources in terms of wages and ability to pay transfer fees than we have.
“We accept there are other clubs in the league with more money but we can only concentrate on what we want to do. Hearts and Hibs will look to flex their muscles this season as well. They’ll need to show thei r st rength and t r y to potentially be a wee bit more like us over the last few years. Their supporters will demand that.
“Then you’ve got competitive, well-run clubs like Ross County and St Johnstone who are always up there.
“For us to stay ahead of most of them we’ve got some work to do. That’s ongoing but I’m confident we can achieve what we want to achieve.
“Last season, although we didn’t win a cup, we beat our record points tally.
“Next season we might win a cup without reaching the same points tally in the league. It’s about how you define success.”