JIM McAlister says that he wants to stay at Morton for one more season and finish his career at Cappielow with his contract set to expire at the end of the campaign.

The midfielder insists that he is settled and happy at Ton having hit top form since the turn of the year, scoring against Dunfermline and former side Dundee as he looks to draw his career to a close in Inverclyde.

McAlister is adamant that he wants to see out at least one more year, but conceded that it is up to manager David Hopkin if he stays at the club for next season.

He told the Tele: “I’m happy to be playing and I want to make sure that the club are safe for next season.

“Once the manager knows roughly where we’re going to finish in the league then I’m sure he will start talking to the rest of the boys because I’m sure a few of the younger boys will be ahead of myself in the pecking order that he wants to tie down for the future.

“I’m old enough and wise enough to know and understand how it works in football, so I just play it week by week and game by game and we’ll just have to see how it goes.

“With it being my tenth year here I’d love to end a landmark like that on a high. 

“I’d said at the beginning that it would be a rollercoaster and it’s turned out that way, like it usually is.

“At my age, I’m quite settled and happy here and I want to finish my career here.

“I don’t want to be one of those players who now at 34, 35, 36 go and spend a year here and there before hanging up their boots, becoming a nomad.

“I’ve played for four clubs over a 17-year career and I’m quite proud of that fact, so we’ll see how the season pans out before having a break in the summer.

“I wouldn’t know how to feel about playing elsewhere, but I do want at least one more year playing.

“Especially when you’re so settled and happy but that’s obviously up to the coaching staff going forward.”

The skipper believes the Ton will have to be well prepared when they welcome the league’s form team, Alloa Athletic, to Cappielow on Saturday.

The Wasps come into the game having taken 12 points out of their last 15 and McAlister has called for his team-mates to put some distance between the two sides.

He said: “We’ll need to be well prepared and well drilled to take the game to them.

“We’re two of the form teams in the league, along with Arbroath, who obviously beat Queen of the South at the weekend.

“We want to keep our 100 per cent record going against Alloa, we got a good result away against them once we got going.

“In the second half, we were by far the better team so we have the incentive there to go and put a bit of daylight between them and ourselves going into the final part of the season.”