St Mirren battling to hold onto McGrath

Jamie McGrath is at the centre of plenty of transfer speculation with Aberdeen's new manager Stephen Glass believed to be ready to test St Mirren's resolve to hold onto the Athboy man.

The former Dundalk midfielder has fired 15 goals for St Mirren this season and has been inspirational in the Paisley side's run to the SFA Cup semi-finals, but Aberdeen aren't the only club interested in the 24-year old with League One promotion hopefuls Peterborough United also believed to be interested.

McGrath's current manager, former Republic of Ireland international Jim Goodwin revealed that there have been enquiries about the Meath man from south of the border, but Goodwin insists St Mirren would have to get an "outrageous" sum for his star man who still has a year left on his contract.

“Jamie has been one of our star performers all season. I have had a number of conversations with managers out there regarding Jamie, but we’re lucky we’ve got him tied up for next season so I’m planning for next season with McGrath in our team," said Goodwin.

“If somebody comes in with an outrageous bid in the summer then who knows what could happen. It would need to be a huge sum of money (for us to sell) because a hundred grand just isn’t going to cut it as we wouldn’t be able to replace Jamie McGrath with £100,000 or £200,000.

“There has been no cash put on the table yet, but I have had at least three managers from England and one from Scotland asking about him.

“People can talk about selling, but we’re very fortunate that we’re in a position as a club where we don’t need to sell anybody. We’re trying to build something here and this is the very early stages of a big project we’re working on.

“I think we need to be realistic about it. We’ve made Jamie a very good and very fair offer.

“It’s the kind of offer we’re able to get to, but we’re not daft enough to think other clubs can’t pay slightly more salary.

“I have to be realistic too and I don’t want to hold anyone against their will either. If a big club comes in that offers Jamie life-changing wages then who am I to stand in his way? But it has to work for all parties.

“Jamie is far too grounded to allow any kind of speculation affect him. He knows he needs to keep performing on the pitch and hopefully come the summer there will be a whole host of clubs wanting to take our best players – and hopefully we’ll do our best here to encourage them to stay with us for at least another season,” concluded the Buddies manager.