Partick Thistle would be losing one of their key players should Stuart Bannigan leave the club, according to his Firhill team-mate Kris Doolan.
Aberdeen have been credited with an interest in bringing the 23-year-old to Pittodrie, either in the January transfer-window or during the summer upon the expiry of his contract.
Doolan admits he would be devastated to see the energetic midfielder leave the club, and hopes that they can hang on to Bannigan for as long as possible.
He said: “It would be a massive blow to us, he’s been outstanding.
“We know what to expect when a player is as good as Stuart though, the better he is playing with us then it’s inevitable that there will be more and more people coming to watch him.
“Obviously we want to get the best out of him, he’s been absolutely different class for us. I would love to see him stay. Stuart is an honest boy and a very good professional. He works really hard every day, and I’ve no doubt that whatever Stuart decides is best for him, he’ll give it 100% wherever he is.
“I would love to see him stay for as long as possible though.”
Doolan is hoping to get back amongst the goals in this weekend’s crucial encounter with Dundee after failing to net in four games since his strike against Dundee United in mid-December.
It hasn’t been for the want of trying, with his spectacular volley that cannoned off the bar leading to Thistle’s second goal against St Mirren a particularly near miss.
“I’d hit it so well that I immediately thought it was net-bound,” he said.
“I managed to get good power and pace into the ball, so I was gutted to see it come back off the crossbar.
“In times gone by we haven’t been able to get enough bodies into the box for those sorts of rebounds though, so it was good to see David Amoo getting in there to put it away.
“We’re into another big game on Saturday against another team that is around about us in the league, so we’ve got to win.
“I hit the bar with an overhead kick against them as well, it would be nice to see one fly in this weekend!
“We know what to expect from Dundee, they’re a good team, but we’ll be going out to attack.
“There’s fine margins between us at times, but they’re coming to Firhill so it’s up to us to go and take the game to them, which is what we’ll do."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here