St Mirren seek to keep Shankland

ST MIRREN assistant manager David Farrell has praised striker Lawrence Shankland after his two wonder-strikes sealed victory at Livingston on Saturday.

While the spectacular goals certainly caught the eye, Farrell says there is much more to the on-loan youngster’s game, adding that they would be keen to retain his services next season if Aberdeen would agree.

“Although Lawrence hasn’t been a prolific scorer since he came in, he’s got his fair share of goals and his performances have been terrific,” Farrell said. “We’d obviously love him to score loads of goals but his contribution to the team, often playing up front on his own, has been great.

“He’s a good player and our biggest battle will be trying to get him back next year. We would love to keep him, he’s doing a terrific job, and I’m sure he’ll continue to do that from now until the end of the season.

“We’ll have to wait and see about budgets and things like that, and he’s Aberdeen’s player. On the back of his good performances, they might want to keep him. If they do decide to put him out on loan again though, then we’ll be the first ones in the queue trying to get him back.”

Farrell is hoping to maintain the momentum from the win at the Toni Macaroni Arena with a victory over high-flying Raith Rovers tonight at the Paisley 2021 Stadium. However, he knows his side will have to be much more resolute in their defending than they were in a 4-3 defeat at Stark’s Park just a couple of weeks ago.

“We’ve been playing reasonably well and picking up some points recently, so it’s more about carrying on the momentum of the games we’ve played in the last six or seven weeks.

“I think it will certainly be a tight affair. It was tight the last time, although there were a lot of goals. We’d certainly want to defend better.”