STEWART Milne was prepared to fight tooth and nail to keep Derek McInnes at Pittodrie, but the Aberdeen chairman has admitted that if his manager really wanted to move to Rangers he would have eased the way to make it happen.

Milne was overjoyed to hear on Thursday that McInnes had spurned the Ibrox outfit’s offer, less than 48 hours after they had made their move by requesting permission to speak to him.

Although the Dons chairman rebuffed the query, he knew it would be impossible to retain McInnes if he made up his mind his future lay with Rangers.

“Nothing happened on Monday nor all day Tuesday and then the call came on Tuesday night and that was really when things crystallised that Derek knew for sure they wanted him for the post.

“If he had made up his mind that he definitely wanted to go to Rangers, we would have found a way to make that happen. But he’s started something at Pittodrie and has been very much part of the progress we’ve made in recent years and he clearly sees a lot can be accomplished in the coming two or three years.

“He realised that if he left Aberdeen at this stage under the circumstances he had before him, much of what he has done might have been tarnished and I believe that’s a measure of the man.

“He’s a proud guy. He’s a demanding guy who knows what he wants but he has brought a great deal to the club and has a real energy and belief and everyone can see how he’s instilled that into the team.”

Milne, a multi-millionaire housebuilder who has experienced the highs and lows of running a football club, feeds off his manager’s energy and admits he would have been devastated had he lost him to one of Aberdeen’s biggest rivals.

But he pointed to McInnes’s love for the club and insisted that and their relationship over the last four-and-a-half years, were the reasons for him staying.

“I think he made up his mind he wanted to stay at Aberdeen as opposed to saying ‘I don’t want to go to Rangers’,” Milne said. “That’s football; you never know what’s around the corner.

“There was a disappointment regarding the time it went on but we got the right result at the end of the day which is the most important thing.”

With tension building as speculation about McInnes’s future and whether he would be the man to take over from sacked Pedro Caixinha dominating the media, Milne took the decision to issue a statement saying the manager was going nowhere. It was designed to end the persistent questioning about the affair and was endorsed 24 hours later by McInnes himself.

“I thought that by then the speculation had been going on for the best part of four weeks and I sensed it was having an effect throughout the club,” Milne aid. “In addition, people were approaching me and asking what was going on and what could we do to try to bring it to a head. I genuinely thought the statement would kill the thing off and it did for maybe a week or so and then it resurrected again.

“It appears Rangers had a reason to keep the matter it alive and we don’t really know when they made up their minds that they were going to go for Derek. The first we knew for definite was when the approach came in on Tuesday. We value what Derek has done for the club and we were certainly not going to give up without a fight. However, we did accept that, at the end of the day, Derek would decide.”

It was on Thursday afternoon that McInnes called his chairman to say he was staying at Aberdeen and talked Milne (inset) through his reasons, taking the view he could not turn away from what he had achieved in his current role.

Milne added: “He looked at what we have embarked on over the next two or three years – the proposed £50 million stadium and training complex – and he knows the importance of that challenge and continuing to grow the club to bring in more revenue. He has a key role in all that and it appeals to him. He is a central part of Aberdeen FC and he’s helped create that.

“He’s started something at Pittodrie and has been very much part of the progress we’ve made in recent years and he clearly sees a lot can be accomplished in the coming two or three years.”

Milne later criticised Rangers chiefs for failing to put their name to the statement released following McInnes’s decision that suggested the Aberdeen boss was not up to managing a “massive club like Rangers”, but the chairman said that was “totally wrong”.

“In their words, they see Rangers as a ‘massive club’. That was a very important event and there was undoubtedly a need for a strong statement to reassure everyone. But there was a need for someone that holds power and authority at that football club to attach their name to a statement like that. I found that one of the strange things.”