Mansfield Town

Manager Paul Cox says that he is close to completing deals to bring two new strikers to One Call Stadium.

Our manager, who wouldn’t be drawn on specific names, has been meeting players and speaking to representatives since the end of last season.

As a result, the 41-year-old hopes that the club will be in a position to announce our second summer signing in the next few days.

He said: “I would have thought by the end of this week that we’ll probably be in a position to make a statement on signings coming in.

“There are two [players] that are very close. You never know until the paperwork has gone through, but we hope that they will be signed by the weekend.”

He continued: “They come within our wage structure. Their goals to games ratio – one is excellent and one is very good – and we’ve worked extremely hard on different fronts with both of them.

“Obviously, anyone that can score goals or is capable of scoring goals at this level, every club wants one of them.”

Meanwhile, our boss is still awaiting decisions from Alan Marriott, Jack Thomas, Liam Marsden and Lindon Meikle – all of whom have been offered new deals to stay at the club.

“It’s a tough position that we’re in with the players at the minute, but I understand that the players have got to look after themselves,” added Cox.

“They’ve got mortgages to pay and families to feed, so if we can agree something with them which is within our budgetary remits, then brilliant, if not, we’ve got to move on.”

Elsewhere, after Luke Jones joined us for a third spell last week, our boss admits our defensive signings are now ‘more or less’ complete.

“I think more or less, apart from a let-sided player that can play at left-back, left wing-back or anywhere down that left-hand side, that’s us for now,” said Cox.

“In terms of the squad, it might be 20 maximum this year. We might push it to 22 depending on what we can afford in the budget, but that’s us finished in terms of defenders and probably a left-back is now what’s needed.”