St Mirren have identified “two or three” players to bring in before the transfer window closes, Brian Kerr confirmed.
The Buddies assistant manager admitted that deals to get some of the bodies in have taken a “wee bit longer” than normal but is still hopeful they will be concluded by the 11pm deadline on Monday night.
Boss Stephen Robinson has already added to his squad this window so far with shot-stopper Zach Hemming coming in for the departing Ellery Balcombe – who was later loaned to Motherwell – and former Gateshead striker Owen Oseni signing on.
Declan John also signed a deal to the end of the season with the club after he was drafted in as an emergency addition to cover the left wing-back position.
“Things are still moving,” Kerr said yesterday. “I think the biggest challenge we’ve got is we’ve got a very good squad here, we’re looking at quality rather than quantity.
“So, we have identified two or three main targets and because we’re going at the top end of the quality spectrum, things take a wee bit longer and the clubs that we’re dealing with take a bit more time to make these calls.
“What we’ve got to be is patient, we’ve still got a few days left of the window and we know that the ones we want. We don’t want to just jump on a player because he’s available.
“We’ve pinpointed the exact targets we want so, hopefully, by Monday night, we get the two or three that we’re hoping to get in, and by the time the window closes, we’re in a much stronger position.”
Kerr reiterated that the deals the club were working on last week are not “dead” but still in the works.
He added: “No, it’s not dead. It’s certainly not dead. It’s just taking a bit longer for one reason or another; it might be that, at clubs, there’s injuries and movement or whatever that might be.
“There’s things that are happening but at the same time we’re still confident and the ones that we are looking at will still hopefully be coming in the building in the next few days.”
The Buddies will be welcoming their fellow Saints in St Johnstone this afternoon to the SMiSA Stadium as they look to make it three wins on the bounce after beating Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup fourth round then thrashing Aberdeen in the Premiership at Pittodrie.
Robbo has almost a full squad to pick from with Conor McMenamin and Alex Iacovitti the only absentees. Kerr says the game will be a tricky one – with his Saints needing to be wary of Simo Valakari’s side.
He said: “We’ve got to be very wary. I think we’ve got to be wary of any team in the league but St Johnstone, obviously, picking up a couple of results. They are high in confidence so this is sort of the opposite of last weekend.”
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