Alan Archibald has admitted he would be shocked if Partick Thistle's out-of-contract players signed for Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

The Highland club have confirmed their interest in signing Thistle's midfield trio of Stuart Bannigan, Abdul Osman and Stevie Lawless.

With Inverness and Partick Thistle being clubs of similar size, Archibald says he would be surprised if he lost some of his top players to John Hughes's side.

“I would be,” he said, “But I don’t know what’s been offered to them financially. It’s not a long career being a footballer. We all know that.

“If they’ve got a chance to make a bit more money so be it, but I think we’ve got to get the point across to them that it’s a good environment here, we’ve played some good stuff over the past few years – that’s why people want them.

“Sometimes you are better to stay.”

Although Bannigan has already indicated he will move on in the summer, Archibald is ready to pull out all the stops to persuade the other two players that their futures lie at Firhill rather than at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium.

He said: “[Inverness] approached us last week saying they were going to speak to our players. They are out of contract so they are entitled to do that.

“They are good players who have done well for us and hopefully we can keep them here. Stuart I think has said he was going to go before his injury. The other two we are still trying to keep.

“All we can do is show them how good a place this is. They’ve played good football here – that’s why other teams want them, but the grass isn’t always greener. That’s our selling point.”

The Thistle boss is keen to get his side as high up the table as possible, not only to help persuade current squad members to stay, but also to potentially attract other players to Firhill for next season.

“I think Dundee are trying to get a couple of Inverness players – we are all doing it,” he said.

“It’s just what we can offer. You try and be the best selling point. There’s not much between a lot of the teams.

“It could be the difference of a couple of hundred pounds, maybe a training facility or what you play on – astro or grass.

“You are clutching at every little thing to try and make it as good a club to come to as possible.

“We’re not close to getting anyone in at the moment. My focus was to try and get the ones here tied up. If we can do that we can build from there.

“We’ve got a skeleton squad tied up at the moment. If we can get the other key ones like Lawless and Osman signed up then great. Then we’ll start to focus on other ones as well.

“We could possibly offer them a little bit more if we were guaranteed a top-six finish. But you are also then selling yourself as a top-six team. That’s another selling point.

“If we can finish in the top half, other players plus the ones already here might want to play their football here.”