Derek McInnes has made a major admission on Nico Raskin. It certainly shakes up a major report on which everybody else had different information. Derek McInnes has revealed that Rangers have received no offers for Nico Raskin as yet.
McInnes denies any Raskin offers
This calls into huge question the notion that Hull City offered £14M for his services and Rangers rejected the bid. McInnes has denied that. Without overtly doing so, he has confirmed that there were no offers in the first place.
“Obviously Nico might be subject to some interest, we’re well aware of that, and we always thought he could be a flight risk this summer in the back of the World Cup. So we’ve reinforced the midfield area, but obviously if nothing comes in for Nico then he’s another good player to add to it. The one area of the pitch where we’re really strong is through the middle of the park just now. Nico will be back this week, but he won’t come into contention for the game on Friday, he’s not going to do enough training ahead of that. And I think after as many games played, World Cup exploits, we never planed for Nico to be back for Dundee United, but there will be good options in there, and it’s an area of the team we’re quite strong.”
This suggests that the story was not exactly true. The fact is that Raskin is definitely on the table at a far higher value than £14M.
Hull links created convenient clickbait
We now realise that sources may have specifically used Hull City because of Rangers’ transfer activity involving them, Jack Butland and Ivor Pandur.
Just as Ibrox Noise reported recently, the West Ham and James Tavernier link surfaced after Rangers played West Ham in a friendly. This is convenient clickbait content based on circumstances and convenient facts. It is not based on the truth.
Because there was publicity and focus on Ibrox involving Rangers and West Ham, the Tavernier story would gather legs. It offered an easy and convenient way to generate traffic.
Ibrox Noise also believed the report
It was pretty much the same for the Hull City and Nico Raskin bid. Admittedly, even Ibrox Noise was rather fooled by that one. Even we believed that the bid was real. Maybe it was, but McInnes hints otherwise.
The press widely reported it and no ITK sources denied it. Usually, the usual reliable suspects will deny such stories. However, in this case, there was no such thing.
Consequently, we believed that story to be true. However, McInnes himself has implied very strongly that it was not.
Rangers await the first real bid
Therefore, it seems that Hull City made no £14M bid. Consequently, we await to see when an actual bid of good value arrives for Raskin.
For now, however, it is all silent on that front.