Motherwell target Pars striker

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee, addressing pressmen after Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat by St Johnstone, said: “We’ve got contract talks with Scott McDonald.

“We don’t know for certain that Scott will be here.

“So we have to have provision.

“He (El-Bakhtaoui) is certainly one that we would be happy to bring here if we needed him.

“Scott has got to tell us what he wants to do. Most of the ball is in his court.

“There has not been an offer for El Bakhtaoui.

“He is just one of a list of players that we would be happy to have here.

“If Scott stays it would kill the El-Bakhtaoui deal.

“We couldn’t afford to take them both.”

McGhee was disappointed his team hadn’t taken first half scoring chances to kill off St Johnstone. But he said they’d merited their traditional lap of honour marking the last home game of the season, as they’d done exceptionally well to get in the top six.

He added: “The second half was a bit of a slog, an end of season sort of second half.

“But the only thing I said to them was that they thoroughly deserved their lap of honour, even although it was a disappointing day today.

“They have put in a great effort to get us even within touching distance of fourth spot.

“So I can’t have too many complaints about it.”

McGhee said his troops had looked “tired” in the second half, but spoke highly of youngsters Dom Thomas and Chris Cadden.

He added: “Everyone was struggling with their own game.

“It wasn’t joined up, it was just a slog.

“We needed that second goal in the first half to give us a chance of just playing the game out.

“We hope Dom will play a part next season. He’s got a big future.

“And some of the people picked young Cadden as man of the match.

“I think certainly he was the one with the most energy.

“At times he needs to improve on his quality but he was good again.”