THEIR Championship status has still to be secured but Allan Johnston says he is already starting to prepare for next season.

Nat Wedderburn gave Dunfermline a huge boost in their efforts to consolidate their place in the division by grabbing the all-important strike in Saturday’s impressive win at Morton, which ended the Greenock club’s hopes of going a calendar year unbeaten on home turf.

The result moved the Pars six points clear of second-bottom Ayr United, and eight ahead of St Mirren, with seven games to go but while Johnston has demanded his players focus on the task in hand, thoughts are beginning to turn towards the summer.

Johnston told Press Sport: “You’re always looking at that anyway but the most important thing is just to concentrate on the games coming up and make sure we get the wins. Getting players signed up and looking at others will then take care of itself.

“You’re starting to think about (players he’d like to keep) but there’s still a long way to go. We need to find out who’s going to be in the league for a start because that makes a massive difference in terms of budget; some of the teams bring bigger crowds than others, so that affects the plans for next season.

“There’s still a lot to play for so we’ve got to make sure we focus on the remaining games, finish the season as high as possible and with as many wins as possible, and take that confidence into next season.”

League leaders Hibernian visit on Saturday as they bid to take another step closer to the title but Johnston, who said John Herron should be available this week before a suspension, has backed his players to raise their game like they did in toppling the ’Ton.

He continued: “It shows you we’re not far away but we need to keep on progressing and trying to improve. We can’t switch off after one result; we need to keep churning out results and finish on a high.

“It will give everyone a lift but it doesn’t get much harder than Hibs. It’s going to be a really tough test but I think we’ve done well against them in the games we’ve played. It should be a good game; the boys seem to raise their game for the big occasion, so we’re looking forward to it.

“There’ll be a lot of twists and turns but we have to make sure we get good performance levels and the results to match.”