THE English consortium that tried unsuccessfully to buy St Mirren earlier in the season have revealed they have not been put off by the club's relegation from the SPFL Premiership but want the selling consortium to clarify the situation before they take their interest any further.

Aspiration Holdings Inc had been in advanced discussions to take over the majority shareholding of the Paisley club and install David Thompson, the former Liverpool midfielder, as their manager. As part of their proposals, the group also wanted to build a hotel next to St Mirren Park, and use part of the surrounding site for long-stay parking for passengers flying from neighbouring Glasgow Airport. The deal eventually collapsed in January due to "the complete lack of communication and contact" between the St Mirren board and the interested party. An alternative takeover bid, from a South American group led by the Buenos Aires lawyer Ricardo Pini, also failed to reach completion, while talks relating to a fans-led buy-out remain very much in their infancy.

Motherwell's victory over Kilmarnock on Friday night confirmed St Mirren would finish bottom of the Premiership this season, ending their nine-year stay in the top division. They have already begun to cut costs accordingly, with physiotherapist Gerry Docherty and goalkeeping coach Paul Mathers both accepting redundancy terms rather than a wage drop. Nine first-team players - including Steven Thompson, John McGinn and Marian Kello - are out of contract in the summer, with those players with deals beyond the end of the season set to have their wages halved ahead of the drop into the Championship.

Manager Gary Teale has a year remaining on the deal he signed as Tommy Craig's assistant last summer and is keen to remain in post despite being unable to keep the team in the top division. A board meeting was planned for today at which the topic of Teale's future, as well as the possibility of a new management structure including the potential appointment of a director of football, were expected to be under discussion.

The club remains up for sale, as has been the case since September 2009 when a group of directors put their individual shares together to create a 52% block. Arrangements are also thought to be in place to purchase the stock of other major shareholders - including former directors Gordon Scott and Ken McGeoch - that would take that stake up to 75%, the level at which any owner would have almost complete power over the football club.

With the club no longer playing top-flight football, the asking price is set to fall from the £1.5m figure set initially. That could again make it appealing to investors, including Aspiration Holdings.

"We would certainly look at St Mirren again if the board were to come out and clarify the situation now that the club has been relegated," consortium member Graeme Redpath told Herald Sport. "We would need to know the new price, what deal they want, and how they want it done, before we would commit ourselves to any extended dialogue. We invested a lot of time and money before and we wouldn't do that again unless the picture was clearer. The fact that St Mirren have been relegated doesn't put us off. It is still a great club with a lot of potential. But we would need a few things clarified before we took our interest any further."