Hull City’s Ryan Giles makes honest Middlesbrough transfer confession.
The defender was the source of much speculation throughout the summer.
Ryan Giles has confirmed there were discussions surrounding his future at Hull City over the summer after seeing his move to the MKM Stadium made permanent.
Giles became City’s first signing of the summer when his loan move from Luton Town in January after an obligation to pay in the region of £4m to bring him from Kenilworth Road.
After those talks, City eventually rebuffed Boro’s approaches and decided to keep Giles, with vice-chairman Tan Kesler challenging the former Wolves left-back to step up and repay the faith the club showed in him, in bringing him to the club, initially, in January before committing to buying him for a not insignificant amount of money, and for the first time, Giles has spoken about the possibility of him leaving the club in the summer window in a refreshingly honest interview.
“It was fine,” Giles told Hull Live when asked what the summer of transfer chat was like on a personal level. “Listen, I’m a professional, that’s my job, there’s always noise, there’s always talk. There’s things on social media, but I think for me as a footballer, and at the end of the day, I was a Hull City player and that was that for me, really, I just tried to get my head down and get on with things.”
Speaking to BBC Humberside Sport, Giles explained there had been conversations about him leaving the MKM Stadium before the Tigers eventually closed the door, and opted against doing a deal with their Championship rivals.
“I stayed out of it, like I said, I’ll go back to being professional, that’s the job of a professional. There’s talks on the internet, on social media, and I get all of that. My job was to keep my head down and keep doing what I was doing,” Giles explained in a candid chat.
“I was a Hull City player and as long as I was that, I wanted to give one hundred and 10 per cent, and I want that to come across to everybody else, as well. It’s not a case of me shying away from things, everybody’s got their opinion at the end of the day and I completely respect that, I really do respect that. It’s my job as a professional to get my head down and do my best for Hull City and that’s ultimately what I want as a Hull City player, I just want to do well at this football club, it’s as simple as that.
“Listen, there were conversations, of course there were. I’m not going to shy away from it and lie about it, but I obviously only joined the club as a permanent in the summer, I know I was here in January but that was obviously as a loan.
“I had the conversations, it wasn’t the case of me saying ‘I want to leave’, it wasn’t that, we had a conversation and that was that. The club made it clear they wanted me to stay and I respected that.”
Amid the talk about Boro’s interest and the potential for him to go back to the Riverside Stadium in August, Tan Kesler challenged Giles to repay the faith, and he says, he understands why those comments were made, even if they were difficult to hear.
