St Johnstone are taking a look at another striker as boss Tommy Wright continues to build ahead of the new season.
Former Walsall forward George Bowerman linked up with the squad yesterday and is one of a number of players trying to win a deal at McDiarmid Park.
The 21-year-old came through the League One outfit’s youth academy and comes highly recommended through Wright’s connections down south.
“A guy I know does a bit of work for Michael O’Neill so he can double up for me now,” Wright explained.
“He watches a lot of games in League One and League Two and he had mentioned George who is a now a free agent, so we’ll take a look at him. But the boys are looking really good and we know where we’ve got to fill places in the squad.
“It’s happening and it will happen. I’m quite at ease with the progress that is being made, particularly after getting David Wotherspoon in. We probably do need a defender in and that’s maybe our biggest concern now.
“I think we’ve probably got enough up front with Steven MacLean, Nigel Hasselbaink and Stevie May and if we went into Europe with that I think I’d be happy enough, although you would maybe like to add another one.
“The bigger picture is the whole season and to rush in and get in someone just for Europe isn’t the right thing to do so we’ll bide our time.
“With David, we didn’t think that was a possibility but things happened so quickly. You could go away and get a phone call, someone could pop up desperate to come and want to do a deal and they don’t want to hedge their bets.
“So it could happen so quickly.”
New Zealand international defender Ian Hogg, former Rangers forward Rory Loy and Ballymena striker Neil Lowry have also been on trial this week and Wright will continue to run the rule over them.
The Saints boss also has a number of other irons in the fire, and hopes the situation regarding Newcastle midfielder Mehdi Abeid can be resolved one way or another soon.
“We’ve got the ones on loan and we’re still looking, and we have talked with a club about a player coming in on loan but that isn’t within our control right now,” he said.
“As for Mehdi, he’s said he’s still desperate to come to St Johnstone but we really need to try and move on from it because we can’t keep hanging on.
“We have been speaking to Newcastle as well and the chairman here has made him a very good offer and we can’t budge on that.”
However, he may yet face competition from former Saints boss Steve Lomas, who is reported to be interested in taking Abeid to Millwall.