Graham Alexander will not lose sleep about what’s next for Watt

Motherwell manager Graham Alexander will not sit and worry about Tony Watt leaving for a Championship club in England after the striker turned down a Fir Park extension.

Watt is free to talk to other clubs ahead of his deal expiring in the summer and has been linked with the likes of Blackburn, Preston, Birmingham and Bristol City in recent days.

The former Celtic striker has scored a career-best 10 goals already this season and tops the cinch Premiership scoring charts.

And that form appears to have given him plenty of options for the next stage of his career.

Alexander said: “He’s one of a number of players who are out of contract who we have offered contracts to. Each player has the right to either say yes, say no or negotiate.

“At this moment Tony has turned down the contract that we offered and the ball is in the player’s court now to decide what he wants to do for his future.

“We have made numerous offers to players and we will see how they progress over the next few weeks.”

Watt is approaching two years at Fir Park, a run which has given him his longest spell in the one team, having played for 11 clubs beforehand including a number of loan spells.

Although the Lanarkshire native has found happiness on the park, with his 28th birthday approaching he has had to weigh up football, family and financial issues as he ponders his next move.

Alexander knows Motherwell will continue to lose players to clubs who can pay more wages.

“I don’t worry about it because we can’t really compete with a Championship club or even League One and some League Two clubs,” said Alexander, whose team host St Johnstone in the cinch Premiership on Saturday.

“In fact, (or) a couple of National Leagues which we lost players to in the summer.

“We understand where we are, we feel we make a great environment for players from the football side. They all understand where we are on the financial side.

“There’s a lot of teams within the UK we can’t compete with so we don’t get too uptight about that.

“We understand where we are in the food chain but we feel we can certainly make players valued, they can progress their careers here, they can win games here.

“So there’s a lot of plus points for us to attract players and keep players. But every player has the individual right to decide what his future is and we respect that.

“We know where we want to go, we know where our parameters are on the financial side, and we know where we need to improve the squad.

“We are quite clear on the thought process going into this period. Transfer windows always throw up different issues and players coming and going, so it’s nothing different from any other window.”