Big news this week as, for the first time since the club was put up for sale, there appears to be a deal in the offing.

The big questions about any outside investment – especially when it's coming from overseas – is who is involved? And what is in it for them?

Saints are in a very, very different position to other clubs who have needed outside investment – or a rescue package – in recent years.

Above all else, what was once a piece of farmland out past the edge of town that was gifted to the club for free is now an enormously valuable asset surrounded on all sides by housing and commercial development and in a strategically well-connected site.

The footprint of McDiarmid Park and its surroundings isn’t far off the size of the lower half of the Western Edge development just to the south of the stadium. It is truly massive and would be a developer’s dream.

So the question comes in several parts – what is the club, which presumably includes the cash in the bank and the value of the land and stadium on top of the actual value of a Premiership football team, actually worth? Assuming it isn’t a philanthropic gesture, what kind of return on investment does an investor expect? What assurances are there that there isn’t some kind of asset stripping in mind, or an arrangement that separates the club from the stadium and leaves us perpetually in debt to an outside entity?

The question of the stadium itself is interesting to me. I’m closer to 40 than I care to admit but even I’m too young to remember Muirton Park. It may be surprising to those a decade or more younger than me but when McDiarmid Park opened back in the late 80s it was cutting edge – the first of its kind and the template for a lot of what followed in stadium design in the 90s and 2000s.

But as, like I, our home stadium approaches the end of its fourth decade, so too it starts to show its age, just as I do. There are bound to be some serious repair bills in the future – something that has been alluded to in the past. Muirton Park lasted 60 years – and while there’s little prospect of McDiarmid Park getting to a similar level of disrepair, it is no longer a place that’s at the forefront of modern stadium design.

It would make sense to me if a new owner came in with a similar mindset to Geoff Brown in the 80s – trade in an old stadium for a newer model and find a way for the club to profit. A new owner may well then be able to realise a return on investment in the short to medium term.

But if that was the plan, wouldn’t our renown housebuilder owner not already have gone down that route?

Who is to say. For my money, I wouldn’t object to that kind of plan if it moved us to a new ground, fully enclosed on all corners, with stands tight to the pitch and a capacity in the 8-9000 range. Something closer to the town centre would be great too.

That seems quite unlikely – and I think my plan of building the May 17 Memorial Thunderdrome on the Lesser South Inch is probably a little far-fetched – but it would be a great way to move the club forward once more.

Refresh and renew – that’s what we need right now. Hopefully this process comes to fruition sooner rather than later, and I think we owe our current owners the benefit of our trust that he won’t sell out to someone with malign intent.

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I’m hesitant to ever read too much in to results against the Old Firm. Be in no doubt – this is not a vintage, swashbuckling Rangers team on the march to the title. However, they are a decent side and one who are undoubtedly going tin win 85% plus of their remaining fixtures this season.

I think the positive you can take is that we were rarely played through – it took a superb long-range strike and two penalties to seal the win – but it remains a concern that we quite simply don’t create nearly enough in front of goal.

That’s always going to be more difficult against Rangers and Celtic than anyone else and setting up to be hard to beat with pace in the forward areas as we did isn’t a terrible idea.

The bigger test comes this weekend at St Mirren, who had an awful result against Livingston last week. We have to get forward more effectively, it is as simple as that. How that looks – that’s up to the manager – but it probably needs to involve Carey playing further forward to provide a creative spark and a strike pairing involving Nicky Clark, our most reliable goalscorer.

The wins need to start coming now, or we risk being dangerously close to the trap door come the split.