Mcinnes will have to rely on bargain buys, says Milne
Stewart Milne will give Derek Mcinnes money to spend in the January sales but the Aberdeen chairman insists they will have rely on bargain buys to boost their chances of denying Celtic yet another Premiership title.
The Aberdeen manager’s priority is the addition of a striker, with youngster Bruce Anderson ruled out until March with a torn calf muscle.
James Wilson scored in the weekend win at Livingston but that was only the highly rated forward’s third goal since joining on loan from Manchester United. Stevie May has only scored once from open play all season, so Mcinnes needs to boost his side’s firepower to sustain a title challenge after the winter break.
Mcinnes, pictured, is also in the market for an attacking left-back since Derby County manager Frank Lampard has recalled Max Lowe from his loan deal.
Milne has vowed to find funds to help Mcinnes but admits the Pittodrie club cannot afford to splash out big money now.
He said: ”most people appreciate the constraints we work under in scottish football. We have worked hard over the last four or five years to continually grow Derek’s budgets. When the window is open, Derek has clear plans of the move he wants to make. We will work with him but Derek recognises there is not a huge pot of money there to work with. ”
Some of those money worries would have disappeared if they had accepted Aston Villa’s £6 million offer for Scott Mckenna on the last day of the summer transfer window. But Milne does not regret turning that down and is bracing himself for renewed interest in the player this month.
He added:“we know Scott is of interest to a number of clubs down in England. We will just have to wait and see what materialises in January.
“We felt it was very important to keep Scott as we lost a lot of very good players out of the squad that summer.“
Good news for Mcinnes is that long term injury victims Gary Mackay-steven, Mikey Devlin and Tommie Hoban are all expected to be fit when the action resumes later this month.