Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald has urged his out-of-contract players to follow the lead of David Amoo and commit themselves to the club for next season.

Amoo signed a new one-year deal yesterday to remain at Firhill until the summer of 2017 after 5 goals in 39 appearances so far this campaign.

While Archibald was pleased that the winger has been fixed up for another season, he admits that the club can’t wait forever for an answer on offers made to the likes of Stuart Bannigan and Stevie Lawless.

“We’re delighted to get David’s contract across the line,” Archibald said.

“He had a very slow start. He took a bit of time to adjust to the Scottish game and the way we wanted to play. He’s had a fantastic second half to the season and we said that he had to push on.

“I think some players do turn up towards the end of their contracts. I told him he has to come back ready to go for next season. I don’t think a lot of full-backs like playing against him.

“We’re ongoing with others. We won’t wait forever. Bannigan and Lawless are up and we need answers soon.

“I’ve got my own targets as well. Our players know that if we get other targets to agree then we’ll have to go with them. There’s no real deadline as such but they’re aware if someone else comes up then they might face an ultimatum. They’ve been made offers and it’s just a case of them coming back to me.”

The targets that the Thistle boss has identified are likely to be in attacking areas, with Archibald conceding that improving the number of goals that his side scores is his main priority.

Depsite signing Chris Erskine from Dundee United already though, Archibald reckons that they may have to look outside Scotland to find attacking reinforcements in their price range.

“We need goals in the team,” he said.

“Chris Erskine’s coming on board and most of the others are signed on. We’ll need one in each area, maybe three or four, but I think there’s a general acceptance that we need to score more goals.

“We need a spark and hopefully Chris will give us that. They’re the hardest ones to find.

“The good thing is that we can rely on Kris Doolan, who has almost got 15 goals this season, which is fantastic.

“We do a lot of our own work on the recruitment side of things and we have a couple of people that we use in England. Ian Maxwell helps out and takes some of the pressure off me, because it’s constant. Agents are on all the time.

“We’ve done okay. There are always one or two bad ones along the way that people are only too quick to remind you about but, in general, we’ve been okay.

“We probably need to look at England. The better ones in League One and the Championship here, you have to buy. We can’t do that.

“We look for players from 19-23 and you can’t get them out. It’s not a market we can dip into. We can’t go to Queen of the South and offer £30,000 for a player.”

Tomorrow’s match against Hamilton at Firhill is the last of a season of ups and downs for Thistle, but Archibald is pleased overall with how things have gone.

He said: “I think we’ve progressed, even if our league position doesn’t show that. We’re a position down but we were a goal away from the top six.

“We’ve definitely progressed, especially after a bad start. I have to credit the lads for going on a great run. We’ve still got a chance to beat last season’s points tally as well.”

*The first 2000 fans through the turnstiles at Firhill tomorrow will receive a limited edition collectible team photo by the renowned British documentary photographer and photojournalist Martin Parr.