Raith Rovers boss Ian Murray expects an answer from signing target, Hibernian legend Paul Hanlon, 'within next 48 hours'

Hanlon, 34, a long-time Hibs team-mate of 36-year-old Stevenson – who has joined Raith on a two-year contract – is reportedly poised to accept an offer to join the Stark’s Park revolution.

Speaking exclusively to the Fife Free Press, Murray said: “We’re in the market for Paul Hanlon. It’s very difficult.

"I know Paul’s got a lot of really, really good offers, probably better than what some people would like to believe.

"But we’re very hopeful on it.

“Paul – a bit like Lewis Stevenson although he’s a few years younger – he brings the same standards to the football club as Lewis and Callum Fordyce (a centre-half who has just joined Rovers after leaving Airdrieonians).

"He’s obviously a left footed centre-half which are hard to find, he’s calm and composed on the ball.

"We saw it in Lewis Vaughan’s testimonial, he treated that game with the utmost respect and played that game like it was a high level SPL game.

"We've got competition for him, there’s no doubt. But I think with the environment that we’ve created and where we want to be next season, we’ll never be able to get to the level of finance that some clubs are getting to.

"There’s a couple in the Championship that are massively outgunning us. But we hope to get that over the line in terms of what we want to do, progression, who we’re trying to sign, the boys we've already signed and the environment that we’re creating.

"Paul’s on holiday now. We’re hopeful we’ll get an answer in the next 48 hours from Paul and then we need to sort a few things out but we’re really, really hopeful.”