JOHN Coleman is playing the waiting game as he looks to bring players in to bolster his depleted Accrington squad.
The Reds boss admits it is a hectic period where he spends much of his time making and waiting for telephone calls with the January transfer window open.
He is in talks with a number of clubs as he hopes to add five players to his wafer-thin squad.
And this includes Blackburn Rovers about the possibility of bringing striker Jamie Clarke and midfielder Rostyn Griffiths back to the club, which is still ongoing.
But he has been scuppered, for now, in his attempts to sign striker Terry Gornell and defender Luke Waterfall from Tranmere Rovers as the Prenton Park outfit have an injury crisis of their own.
The big boost, though, has been the addition of defender Kieran Charnock on loan from Peterborough until the end of the season - although he is suspended for tomorrow’s home clash with promotion-hopefuls Darlington after picking up five bookings.
"I am just waiting for people to come back to me and I am trying to sort things out," said Coleman.
"It is a waiting game and it can be said to be a thankless task but if I gave up my job tomorrow there would be at least 20 people wanting to have these thankless tasks.
"We certainly need some strong additions. I don’t think we have ever had such a bad season with injuries and I have counted up, since we came into the league, we have had 16 long-term injuries. It is unheard of.
"But having Kieran is a big plus and something to build on and hopefully he will be more settled as things had been up in the air for him for the last few weeks.
"And I still have hopes for Rostyn and Jamie although I am waiting for Blackburn to get back to me.
"Tranmere have an injury crisis so perhaps I could get Terry and Luke in a month or sooner if they sign players. It all depends what happens there.
"I do think we need cover in defence as well as at least one striker and probably a central midfielder too. I would like to bring five players in."
Leam Richardson (ankle) is still only 50/50 for tomorrow while John Mullin (ankle) has had a scan this week. Robbie Williams and Peter Murphy (both knee) are still sidelined leaving an already small squad down to the bare bones.
Goalkeeper Kenny Arthur, though, is back following the injury to his kidney.
"We do need more signings but you only have to look at the crowds to know that we haven’t the finances to carry a big squad," continued Coleman.
"I was looking at Rochdale on Saturday and who they could bring off the bench - strikers like Chris Dagnall and Kallum Higginbotham - and we can’t carry such a squad which is frustrating."
"We are so short we had two goalkeepers on the bench.
"But there is no point bleating about it as we have proved, in the Conference, that you don’t have to have the biggest squads to do well.
"We won it with ease and we did it on a limited budget - there were probably 19 clubs who had higher budgets than us - so it is not impossible. But it does make it harder with the injuries we have at the moment.
"We were lucky in the Conference in that we didn’t have many injuries and managed to unearth some gems who were hungry to prove themselves and we have to do it again," continued Coleman, with Gary Roberts and Ian Craney big hits in non league.
"And hopefully there are some who can rise to the occasion at the club.
"You only have to look at Chris Turner, who came on and did well against Rochdale but he has to keep that going and hope the novelty doesn’t wear off."
Coleman continued: "We have, though, got a limited pool to get players from. The top players in the Conference are probably on more money than we can pay so we can’t go down that line.
"The next stage is UniBond players who may not be good enough so we do have to look at players released by Premiership or Championship clubs.
"The better ones tend to go to the higher clubs but you have to hope that you can get one of those that wants to prove themselves. That’s what I am looking for."
Whether he can get them in before tomorrow’s clash with Darlington remains to be seen but the Quakers are a bogey team for the Reds - it is played five, lost five.
And the Reds need to arrest a slide of five defeats in six matches which keeps them in the bottom six. "We have taken zero points from Darlington but we have always played well against them and we have to hope our luck changes tomorrow," he added.
"They are a big club and expect to win games and probably win more games than they should do and we lose more games than we should do. We want a better result."
