Harrogate Town close in on loan signing of another defender

The Sulphurites have already strengthened their back-line with the arrivals of Anthony O’Connor, Matty Foulds and Toby Sims during the January transfer window, but manager Simon Weaver is not done just yet.

The player in question boasts a wealth of Football League experience, with the club confident of getting a deal wrapped up before Saturday’s League Two clash with Sutton United.

"I just want to make sure that we have plenty of competition for places and are as strong as we possibly can be across the back,” Weaver told the Harrogate Advertiser.

"With the amount of games we have got coming up after all the recent postponements, we’re looking at a lot of weeks where we will be playing Saturday, Tuesday.

"The squad needs to be able to withstand that, we need greater depth to be able to cope with the demands that we will face.

"We’ve got a centre-half in Will Smith who is only just back from nine months out and is still building himself back up in training. And another in Kyle Ferguson who is still some weeks away from being able to play following quite a bad knee injury.

“I don’t want too much pressure on those two lads, and I don’t want to have to ask too much, too soon of them, so that’s why I’ve looked to bring in one more.”

The signings of centre-half O’Connor and left-back Foulds saw Town add much-needed size, physicality and League Two experience to their ranks, with their latest target also a player who ticks the same three boxes.

"We have scored a lot of goals recently, but we haven’t been good enough defensively,” Weaver continued.

"So, this window has been about adding height, strength and Football League knowhow and doing what we can to make sure that we are better at the back.

"There’s been a concerted effort to make sure that we are coming down the tunnel for a game a much more imposing team because we have been targeted due to our lack of size.

"In certain games, when we’ve had certain players missing, we have been found wanting. I don’t think it’s rocket science. There have been too many times when we have been overpowered in our own box.

"We’ve been forced to play lads out of position on occasion and ended up with Warren Burrell marking the opposition’s biggest man at times and we don’t want to continue to find ourselves in that position.”