Thompson says no to Robson Offer

Dundee United have turned down cash offers from Burnley and Nottingham Forest for their captain Barry Robson.

Eddie Thompson, the Tannadice chairman (Photo above) told BBC Sport that neither of the English clubs had come close to his valuation for the 29-year-old midfielder.

It is also understood that Birmingham have enquired about the player. Robson has also been linked with Newcastle and Celtic.

Robson joined Dundee United from Inverness Caledonian Thistle for £50,000 in 2003. He is a Scotland International and can play in central midfield but is also effective on the left wing.

He has also shown he can score goals getting the winner against Clyde in the Scottish Cup recently plus two more on Saturday against Aberdeen.

Thompson is quoted as saying the following:

'There's a whole stack of people watching him.

'But Craig and I want to keep him. You saw the way he struck the ball in from 35 yards the other night, passed the ball into the net on Saturday then you knew where he was going to put that free-kick.'

Dundee United manager, Craig Levein told BBC Sport:

'Barry Robson is a 29-year-old man with a couple of kids who, in my opinion, has only really blossomed in the last year or so.

'He's always had talent, but his consistency was nowhere near what it should have been.

'In the last year, he has really got a grip on what he is doing on the field and off it.

'He is working hard and playing well and that is always going to attract interest from other clubs.'

This is the second time in under seven days we have suffered a knockback in trying to bring a player down from Scotland having failed in our bid to also lure Celtic's Derek Riordan to Turf Moor.

The asking price for Riordan was believed to be £1 million, and the Clarets withdrew interest after a bid of £400-500k was rejected by Gordon Strachan.

It is understood we bid £750k for Robson and it will be interesting to see if we now put in an improved offer to try and hook the in demand midfielder.

However we might have to break our transfer record to secure his services, reports from Scotland suggest the club are looking for £1.5 million. That's £500k more than it cost us to bring Ian Moore and Robbie Blake (first time round) to Turf Moor and could mean using all the money we have so far received for Andy Gray following his transfer to Charlton last week.