Lee Johnson reveals offers for Hibs players as he speaks on McKirdy future and opportunities

Hibs manager Lee Johnson has revealed there are ‘offers pending’ for some of his players as he all but confirmed there will be further departures from Easter Road this summer.

Kevin Nisbet has already left the club to join Millwall while Kyle Magennis has joined Kilmarnock and Marijan Čabraja returned home to Croatia to sign for HNK Rijeka. A host of out-of-contract players also left at the end of last season including Kevin Dąbrowski (Raith Rovers), Mikey Devlin (Livingston), and Aiden McGeady, along with loanees returning to their parent clubs.

On whether or not McKirdy – who missed Saturday’s friendly with Edinburgh City with a hamstring strain – might leave the club amid three clubs enquiring about the possibility of taking the 26-year-old on loan, the Hibs boss kept his cards close to his chest but did suggest there could be more outgoings.

"There are a lot of decisions to make,” he said. “One thing we've never been short of is that decisive nature of our decision-making. We run a tight ship financially and therefore we have to make sure that we absolutely maximise the squad. There's a natural evolution in a squad every window. We've got a couple of offers pending for our players but all parties have got to a) agree and b) want to actually do that."

Lee Johnson applauds the fans at the end of Saturday's pre-season friendly victory over Edinburgh City. Picture: Craig Williamson/SNS Group

Hibs also have a handful of players returning from loan deals – including the goalscorers on Saturday. Christian Doidge, Elias Melkersen, and Dan MacKay were all on target after stints with Kilmarnock, Sparta Rotterdam and Inverness Caledonian Thistle respectively.

"There's always the opportunity to impress,” Johnson continued. “Christian scored a few on loan last season; he's a good lad, an honest worker, and very experienced at this level. Melkersen is at the other end of the scale; he's still forging a career. He went away, didn't feature anywhere near as much as either we or him would have liked, but you can see the extra work in terms of technical stuff that he's been doing.

"Pre-season is always good because you don't have that build-up of negativity. Everybody gets a fresh start. I'm really conscious of not committing to too many things in pre-season because someone may well emerge and it doesn't matter whether that's a 17-year-old or a 37-year-old who's already in the building.”