Lawrence Shankland is open to staying at Morton after his loan spell from Aberdeen comes to an end in the summer, with his contract at Pittodrie set to expire.

The striker arrived at Cappielow in January, and he has enjoyed the experience of playing for the club so much that he admits he would relish the opportunity to sign on a permanent basis.

The 21-year-old isn’t for rushing into a decision over his future just yet though, with the prospect of firing Morton into the Premiership the uppermost thought in his mind.

“I haven’t really thought about my future too much, even though I’m out of contract at Aberdeen in the summer,” Shankland said.

“That’s just the reality of football these days, and there are plenty of other players in the same boat as me.

“All of my focus at the minute is on trying to help Morton to get through the play-offs and into the Premiership, then I will have a proper sit-down and think about where my future might lie.

“But staying at Morton would certainly appeal to me. Why not? It’s a great place to play football under a really good manager and with a great set of lads in the dressing room.

“You can’t really ask for much more than that, but the main thing for now is just to concentrate on these next two games before giving everything to get Morton promoted.

“Once we have achieved that, maybe we can have a conversation and see what both parties are thinking. From my side, I feel really at home here.

“But it’s not something I’m losing sleep over at the moment, there are much more important things to worry about.”

Shankland admits that he has gone through some periods of self-doubt this season after an unsuccessful start to the campaign at St Mirren, and then going through something of a goal drought at Cappielow.

“I would have obviously liked to have scored more goals since I came here, and I think that my contribution has been good at times and maybe not as good as I would like it to be at other times,” he said.

“I got off to a great start by getting the goal on my debut, but things sort of dried up after that.

“When you’re a striker, you don’t tend to take any comfort from people telling you that you are contributing in other ways if you aren’t scoring goals.

“You can tend to overthink things a wee bit and get a bit down on yourself, so it has been a real relief to get another couple of goals recently and it has taken a bit of a weight off.

“I came on and scored a penalty to get us a good result against Hibs, and then I got the goal against Ayr United last weekend that got us to the playoffs. So, they have been important goals for the team.

“It’s brilliant when you are in amongst the goals and helping the lads out, and hopefully I can get a few more before the end of the season and help the team through the play-offs.”

Morton haven’t won any of their last seven matches, but Shankland dismissed any notion that the players are feeling the effects of their heroics so far this season.

And he says that today’s visit to Dunfermline and the match against Dundee United next week will be crucial for building up momentum again going into the play-off fixtures.

“It’s six games of football to get in the Premiership at the end of the day,” he said.

“If someone had offered you that at the start of the season you would have bitten their hand off.

“The boys are fine. We are taking the next two games seriously because we want to go into the playoffs with a bit of momentum behind us.

“We will be going full pelt until the very end of our season.”