Leeds United director of football Victor Orta says Rangers weren't willing to entertain offers for Ryan Kent this summer.
The Elland Road club submitted a £10million bid for the player during the transfer window but this was booted out by Rangers.
Kent has been one of Steven Gerrard's most important players so far this season, and the Ibrox club were adamant they didn't want to lose their star man.
Orta admits that the Premier League new boys did try to sign Kent, but Rangers simply didn't have any interest in letting him go.
Discussing interest in both Kent and Rodrigo De Paul of Udinese, he told the Yorkshire Evening Post : "I think [Kent’s] club doesn’t want to sell him.
"We tried and we believe clearly Glasgow Rangers doesn’t want the player to leave. It was never their plan to put Kent in the market.
"[De Paul] was one player we analysed but, in the end, the valuation of his club was at a level that was difficult for Leeds to reach, as a newly promoted club – not just for Leeds but a lot of clubs because, in the end, nobody took him, because of the evaluation of his club, which is fair.”
He added: To be honest, we were realistic in a lot of situations, about salaries, keeping the plan, balancing staying in the Premier League and spending."
In the aftermath of the Kent bid, Gerrard said: "Ryan [Kent] is a player we admire very much here and we have seen him develop. He is progressing very quickly and is a player we want to keep hold off. We very quickly rejected an opening bid that was nowhere near his valuation.
"We want the player to see here, as do the board. The fans love him also and Leeds will need to respect that, they need to really think hard if they want to come in again.
"We will always put up a tough fight to keep the top talent here at Rangers."
