Sergej Jakirovic has rubbished suggestions that Hull City star Ryan Giles will be leaving the club before Tuesday night’s deadline.
Burnley want to sign the City full-back and launched a bid ahead of Saturday’s game at Coventry City, which Giles started, and played 90 minutes as the Tigers won 1-0 at the CBS Arena.
City had not decided whether or not to sanction Giles’ departure, despite being well stocked on the left side of defence, following summer arrivals Matt Targett and Elliot Stroud.
Reports emerged immediately on the final whistle at the CBS Arena that Giles would be heading to Turf Moor, but Jakirovic says that’s not the case.
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City’s 3,000-plus sold-out away following in Coventry sang Giles name repeatedly throughout the game, and he played his part in a second clean sheet of the season as the Tigers backed up their opening day win over Manchester United with a battling success against the Sky Blues.
Jakirovic, though, was defiant in his determination to keep Giles and has made it clear to owner Acun Ilicali that the 26-year-old should not be allowed to leave, unless a ridiculous financial offer is forthcoming.
Giles does not want to leave the MKM Stadium and has made clear his desire to stay and fight for his place in the Premier League, and is not in favour of dropping back down to the Championship.
“No,” was Jakirovic’s blunt response. “Nothing, no Burnley, no nothing. This is my answer to everyone,” he said when asked for the latest by HullLive.
“Of course (he can go), just in one case, if Burnley pays £20m. If Ryan Giles comes to me and says, ‘I want to go’, of course, he will go. He doesn’t want to go; he’s a Premier League player now.”
On the performance, which saw City keep out Frank Lampard’s men for a third league game in a row after two stalemates last season, Jakirovic was, understandably, full of beans.
“It’s an excellent victory, unbelievable. I think that we played good, we played compact, solid and we were aggressive,” the Croatian continued.
“I expected a strong start from Coventry because after 25 years, they are playing at home in their first game.
“Maybe they caused us some problems on our right side with Jack Rudoni and on the left side, this triangle.
“We tried to improve this and also maybe first half some better decisions on the ball in the counter-attacks because I felt that there is a lot of space on our left side, but this is also experience. At half-time, we made two changes because of a dead leg for Lewie Coyle and (Hidemasa) Morita’s 45 minutes (as planned). He last played three months ago last last game.
“We looked good there, we controlled everything with their crosses into our box. We claimed control in our box with Semi Ajayi, John Egan and Nobel Mendy, followed by Lucas Herrington.
“We used one of our counterattacks even before this. Liam (Millar) must play to Mo Belloumi. I thought it was offside or something, but he just didn’t play it. In the end, it’s an excellent victory and three points.”
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