St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin has told Jamie McGrath’s suitors to hurry up with serious offers or risk being too late to take the Irish midfielder from Paisley.
Saints have rejected several offers this summer for the 24-year-old, who hit 17 goals last season.
“There haven’t been any fresh bids over the weekend but it’s still early days,” Goodwin said. “Things are only really hotting up down in England now and you will probably see a bit more business this week and into the following week.
“But we are in a comfortable position with Jamie. The dialogue is there between me and him, we are very transparent in terms of what is happening. Jamie is not kicking my door down forcing us to accept any kind of offer and he’s moving from one agency to another, so all that takes time.
“But one thing I will say to anybody out there who is showing an interest – if we start going into the latter stages of the window, if we start going into the last week and there’s only a few days remaining, then there’s no point coming with a bid at that point because it won’t leave me enough time to replace him.
“If there are teams out there who are serious about the wee man, then put a serious bid on the table and then we will see what we can get done.”
Meanwhile, Goodwin has no plans to let Kyle McAllister go after St Johnstone made an enquiry for the wide player.
Goodwin, who is looking to add some pace out wide after losing Dylan Connolly and Ilkay Durmus, said: “Kyle has a year left on his contract. We are playing a system that I didn’t bring Kyle in to play, we are playing a back three with wing-backs.
“But Kyle is still a big player for us. He had the most assists of any player last season for us and it was probably Kyle’s most successful season in terms of his fitness and availability, because he has always had little issues with injuries and niggles.
“The medical team have worked miracles with Kyle and he has lost a hell of a lot of weight.”
Goodwin does expect some players to depart though.
“We’ve got 25 players in the squad,” he said. “Three young lads will go out on loan. I like to work with a 20-21-man squad.
“I have got a number of players who probably aren’t going to be best pleased with being squad players and will want to try and play regularly somewhere else. Those are conversations we are having at the moment with certain individuals.”
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