The Scottish Premier League side watched Haining against Chesterfield and are ready with an offer ahead of today's 5pm deadline.

Haining returned to England last summer after two years in the SPL with St Mirren, and Saints boss Derek McInnes has kept an eagle eye on his progress at Christie Park.

Haining said: "Sammy McIlroy said a club had contacted Morecambe about signing me and he had said 'no', that he didn't want to sell me.

"If the speculation is true, and it is St Johnstone, then I'm very flattered.

"I had a good couple of years at St Mirren and I know the SPL, but I wanted to come back to England and Morecambe gave me that chance.

"I like it here, and I'm under contract for two years, so if they don't want to sell me, I can't go."

McIlroy will not want to lose the experienced stopper, and with no funds available to beef up his squad, the Shrimps boss will have to try to gatecrash the play-offs without any new faces.

Chesterfield had not beaten Morecambe in their five previous meetings, but the Shrimps, despite hitting the woodwork twice and seeing the visitors play the second half with 10 men, turned in a shocker.

McIlroy said: "We never got going, it was very disappointing.

"There was plenty of effort and commitment, but we were very poor in the final third and we've got to do better. We didn't make Chesterfield work hard enough in defence.

"We didn't have enough guile or cuteness to break them down."

Full report in Monday's Lancashire Evening Post