Half-a-million would land Ryan Porteous from Hibs in January.
That’s according to Jim Duffy, who reckons that sort of figure would tempt the Hibees to cut their losses and flog the wantaway defender, who is out of contract in the summer. The Scotland international has already informed his boyhood club that he won’t be signing the new offer made to him and will speak to other clubs from January.
Lee Johnson and Easter Road chief executive Ben Kensell now have to weigh up whether it’s better to hold on to their first choice centre back, or take what money they can get for him when the transfer window opens next month. Johnson has previously hinted that a move before the end of the season would perhaps be the best solution, but intends to keep playing Porteous until he is no longer a Hibs player.
Former Hibs boss Duffy claimed on Tuesday that he’d “heard on the grapevine” that Porteous could in fact be off to Rangers. The Light Blues are in need of centre backs with Connor Goldson, Filip Helander and John Souttar all out injured. Porteous and fans of the Ibrox club haven't exactly been the best of friends in recent seasons following some bad tempered clashes between the defender and Gers striker Alfredo Morelos. There was also a post-match quip from Porteous mimicking Steven Gerrard after the Leith club dumped Rangers out of the Premier Sports Cup semi-finals last season that didn't go down well.
And now Duffy reckons Rangers could land the 23-year-old - who has also been touted as a potential option for Celtic - for £500,000 if they wanted to do a January deal with the Hibees. However, Johnson has already been planting the seed with English Championship clubs, publicly saying that he felt Porteous would be a good addition for interested parties at that level.
“I think about half-a-million,” Duffy replied when asked on Clyde Superscoreboard how much it might take. “I don’t think you’d have to pay much more. Why would you?
“Hibs might think is it worth losing him for that amount of money? And it all depends if anyone else comes in with another offer.”
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