John Askey’s labours in trying to land a new striker have so far been fruitless.
But the Macclesfield boss is happy to bide his time for now and ensure that, when he does act, he brings in the right man for the job.
More than a quarter of the campaign has now passed and Askey’s men have yet to spend any time in the bottom half of the table.
But if they’re to mount a serious challenge to that all-important top five, he knows he needs more firepower.
“I’ve not had much luck in bringing someone in,” he said ahead of his side extending their unbeaten home record with victory over league leaders Barnet.
“There are one or two available who don’t really offer anything different to what we’ve already got, so we’ll not be impatient.
“It’s not the easiest time of year to sign players, you can only do loan deals and there’s usually some reason why they’re not playing for their clubs.
“We’ve got time to keep looking. With one lad we were looking at, a deal didn’t happen – he didn’t exactly shine in the game we went to see.
“The last thing we want is to have someone who doesn’t add anything new or different to our squad, so we’ll keep working on it. We’ll get the right player with the right character, that’s very important too.”
His prime concern with the existing squad surrounds Danny Whitaker, who has been out of action with a back problem since mid-August.
A recent scan showed that the midfielder (pictured above) was suffering with a compressed nerve, but Askey is hoping he’ll be ready to resume some sort of training soon.
“It’s getting towards make-or-break time for Danny,” added the boss. “It’s not that we don’t miss him, his passing is excellent, he keeps the ball well and runs most games.
“It’s not that the lads in the midfield like David (Gonzalez), Paul Lewis and Will (Haining), as well as Bully (Paul Turnbull, who’s had his own back issue recently) haven’t been playing well, but we can ill-afford for him to be missing for so long.
“We hope he’ll be able to start doing some light running, he has to start doing something soon.
“Once he does then it’s fingers-crossed time.”
