Elie Youan Hibs transfer exit update as Malky Mackay also assesses signing needs

Malky Mackay has offered an update on Hibs winger Elie Youan's future - as well as assessing the work the club needs to do in the transfer market.

The Frenchman has been attracting serious interest and it was believed the Easter Road club had received an offer of £2.5million from an unnamed French club. And it was reported this week that they were stalling on accepting the bid as they looked to hold out for a more of a return on a player they paid £700,000 for a year ago.

New sporting director Malky Mackay has now spoken on the matter and seemed to suggest there hasn't actually been a concrete offer, but there has been serious interest and "heavy" enquiries. He also admits there comes a time when you simply have to cash in in a player.

“There’s been significant interest in him," the former Ross County boss told Hibs Observer. "You can’t stop people putting bids in, and there’s a point where someone’s value reaches the worth of the football club, and it’s something we have to talk about. We’re not quite there yet, but there seems to be a number of people who are now heavily enquiring on him."

Forgetting about departures, the Hibees will need to do some serious work in terms of incomings in the market. A number of loanees have left and they are left with just Rocky Bushiri as a recognised senior centre-back. Mackay admits attacking areas are also a priority.

He explained: "We certainly a need a goalkeeper and we certainly need centre-backs, Will Fish has gone back and Paul Hanlon is gone," says Mackay. “There are also goals that have gone missing from the team, we’re going to need to try and replace those as well. After that, it’s ‘what can we do with what’s left?’

“The midfield area is quite bloated with the amount of players in there at the moment. The squad is not balanced. Ideally, you want a starter, a cover, and a development player for every position. We have the development players but we don’t have ‘there’s the starter, and there’s the covering player to come in’. We’re nowhere near that, and it’s going to take time to get there.

“What we’ve got to get to is a position where we’re going two windows ahead. We’re nowhere near that at the moment. We are in this window, right now. But if we structure things properly with good people working in good departments, you start to be able to move that out. Once you start to sign good pros and good people on longer contracts, then you can start to say ‘we don’t need to bother with that area just now because we’ve got this person for three years, let’s move on to this position…’

“You try to build that up to a point where every position has starters, cover, and developments. If one is going out of contract or we’re selling one, the next one can step up, the kids can come in, or we just need to go and get one or two players rather than wholesale change. I want us to get to a point of stability where we’re only bringing in two or three players in a window."