HIBERNIAN sporting director Graeme Mathie is unhappy with the "patronising" bids from English Premier League clubs for talented teenage full-back Josh Doig.
The 19-year-old left-back, who enjoyed a fine debut campaign in the senior game after nailing down a regular spot in the first team at Easter Road last term, has been the subject of rampant speculation this summer.
Both West Ham and Arsenal have registered an interest in Doig but turned their nose up at Hibs' £5million asking price, valuing the defender at around half that sum, while Watford had a £2.5m bid knocked back last month.
Mathie reckons that had Doig been playing regularly in England's League One - the third tier - then his suitors wouldn't be baulking at meeting the club's valuation of the player.
"If Josh Doig performs how he performed last season in English League One and got to a national final, teams would be willing to spend far more money on him, rather than if he was in Scotland,” Mathie told Vavel.
"We finished third in the league, we’re in Europe, we got to a cup final, and these bids are really disrespectful.
"All people need to do is to walk into our sports science department and ask these people about Josh’s athletic potential, and their eyes light up. They will say that this kid is genuinely an elite-level athlete, he has the potential to be right at the top level.
"So that tells me with his technical ability, athleticism, his desire, his attitude, we’ve got an amazing prospect on our hands here.
"I would love it if a club were to come to me and say that ‘we think we can turn this boy into a £50M player, here’s how we're going to develop him, we’ll give you x if he achieves this, and we’ll give you y if he does that, and within a certain number of years, we think he would be at the top level of the game’.
"That makes a conversation far easier, as it becomes less of a transaction and more of a relationship.
"But right now, we feel some clubs have been quite patronising and more transactional, and it is hard. And for the boy himself, obviously, he wants to go to a bigger club like every other young player, but he is also happy here.
"We want to be in a position to say, ‘thanks for trusting us with your development and we can’t wait to see you shine at the next level’, but no clubs are making that easy for us. The worst thing I could do is sell Josh to a club that then only plays him in the under-23s!”
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