CRAIG McPherson says Morton are playing a waiting game as they look to strengthen their squad for next season’s Championship.

To date, Jim Duffy has added Brechin City winger Bobby Barr to his squad, with Celtic forward Luke Donnelly also expected to sign on a season-long loan.

In recent years, it has often been the case that the Ton have made many of their major signings after returning for pre-season training.

Fouad Bachirou, Stuart McCaffrey, Peter MacDonald, Archie Campbell, Martin Hardie, Craig Reid, Kevin Rutkiewicz, Dougie Imrie, and Declan McManus, pictured above, all joined in late June, July or August.

And assistant McPherson feels the state of play in Scottish football is that most clubs generally hold off until after the beginning of pre-season before they make the majority of their moves.

He told the Tele: “I think it’s at that stage that you are looking at players but where you are waiting to see.

“A lot of managers in the Scottish Premiership are waiting to see who they sign before they can let players go or leave on loan. They’ll do their pre-season and maybe the first couple of league games.

“So it’s just [a case of] playing that waiting game just now to see how things develop over the next couple of weeks and if the right players become available at the right time for us.

“I know the manager has been working hard with a lot of enquiries and it’s whether the individual player feels he wants to wait.

“When clubs start back their pre-season training there’s one or two wee bits of movement, and things happen right up until the end of the transfer window, in terms of loans and moving clubs.

“It’s becoming a wee trend in the modern day that right up until the end of the transfer window clubs will bring a player in and it will then trigger movement with a player going out.

“You always want to get players in as early as you can to settle into the squad but sometimes the dynamics of it mean it’s not always possible.” Ton retained 14 members of last season’s squad, and McPherson feels that has given them a solid base to patiently build on by adding more quality in the coming weeks.

He explained: “The fact we’ve got all of the boys the manager wanted to keep from last season and the boys under contract then we’re only looking at another three or four players to add.

“Last year, it was only three or four players who were signed and we were looking to add 11 or 12 - the manager did really well to pull a squad together at short notice.

“Players then were approached and said they were going to wait and see if they could get anything in the Championship because it was a good league.

“This year it’s not so much of a priority to get a lot [of new players] in, it’s just about picking the right quality to add to the squad we’ve got.

“The fact we are in the Championship, with the great league that should be, is hopefully going to be a big draw.”