ALAN ARCHIBALD, the Partick Thistle manager, has urged his out-of-contract players to follow the lead of David Amoo and commit themselves to the club for next season.
Amoo signed a new one-year deal to remain at Firhill until the summer of 2017 after five goals in 39 appearances so far this campaign.
While Archibald was pleased that the winger has been fixed up for another season, he admits that the club can’t wait forever for an answer on offers made to the likes of Stuart Bannigan and Stevie Lawless.
“We’re delighted to get David’s contract across the line,” Archibald said. “He had a very slow start, but he’s had a fantastic second half to the season and we said that he had to push on.
“I think some players do turn up towards the end of their contracts. I told him he has to come back ready to go for next season. I don’t think a lot of full-backs like playing against him.
“We’re ongoing with others. We won’t wait forever. Bannigan and Lawless are up and we need answers soon.
“Our players know that if we get other targets to agree then we’ll have to go with them.”
The targets that the Thistle boss has identified are likely to be in attacking areas, with Archibald conceding that improving the number of goals that his side scores is his main priority.
Despite signing Chris Erskine from Dundee United, Archibald reckons that they may have to look outside Scotland to find attacking reinforcements in their price range.
“We need goals in the team,” he said. “The good thing is that we can rely on Kris Doolan, who has almost got 15 goals this season, which is fantastic.
“We do a lot of our own work on the recruitment side of things and we have a couple of people that we use in England. We probably need to look at England. The better ones in League One and the Championship here, you have to buy. We can’t do that. We can’t go to Queen of the South and offer £30,000 for a player.”
Hamilton Academical visit Firhill this afternoon, having just released striker Oumar Diaby and midfielders Kemy Agustien and Chris Mandiangu. However, manager Martin Canning is to offer new deals to Louis Longridge, Alex D'Acol, Jesus Garcia Tena, Lucas and Danny Redmond.
He is also hoping to re-sign on-loan Norwich City striker Carlton Morris for next term.
"I am pretty sure his first focus will be to go back down and try to make an impact at Norwich and that would be my wish for him,” said Canning. “If that isn't to be the case, we would be looking to bring him back up if the opportunity was there."
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