Robbie Neilson insists Toby Sibbick won't be leaving Hearts this month.
The defender, who netted his first goal for the club in style to seal Sunday’s 3-0 win away to Hibs in the Scottish Cup fourth round, was subject of a bid from Blackpool. Mick McCarthy is keen to bolster his squad after taking over at Bloomfield Road and sees Sibbick as an ideal addition. But the Tangerines’ offer was booted out by the Jambos.
They could yet return to try again, but Neilson was adamant that Sibbick won’t be sold on less than a year after returning to Tynecastle on a permanent deal. “First and foremost, he’s a very, very important player to us,” he said. “Any player that we have at this football club that’s at Toby’s level has a value and that value didn't get matched. So he'll stay here and I hope that stays until at least the end of the season because we need him.
"The whole process is about building a team, there's no point in bringing people in the summer and then six months later flipping them for money we don't believe the value is there. We're building a team around key players and Toby is one of those key players."
Neilson has already added James Hill, Yutaro Oda and Garang Kuol this month. He wants to bring Callum Paterson back to Gorgie, but Sheffield Wednesday are unwilling to sell so fa. Paterson is out of contract in the summer, so Hearts may sit tight and offer him a pre-contract if they can’t persuade the Owls to do a deal this month.
Neilson admits they are working on a couple of targets, but couldn’t put a timeline on when they might be in the building. We're working on that at the moment but we know this time of year it can be difficult,” he told Sky Sports. “We've got a couple of targets there and we're still pushing at the moment to get at least one of them in. Anyone in for the weekend? You never know in football. I'd like to but I'm not too sure."
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