Paul Simpson headed into Sunday evening with every expectation that the following morning would bring two new loan additions to the group - but that changed when a text arrived very late that same day.
“It’s disappointing news on that one at the moment,” he revealed. “We’ve had a little bit of a setback with it.
“There are things going on inside his parent club that need to be resolved before they’ll allow him to come out.
“I’m still hopeful that we’re going to get him before the weekend, but we have to wait and see now. We had everything booked and ready for him, but this is another example of how things can crop up unexpectedly to change it all.
“We had a hotel booked for him for the week, we’ve got a place for the next month booked for him, and a 12-month let on an apartment sorted as well.
“The medical was organised, the media side was all lined up, but as late as around 10pm on Sunday night I got a text to say that he wouldn’t be travelling, because of the issues that need to be resolved at his home base.
“Again, we’ve said it a lot, we need to stay patient even though it is really frustrating. It’s just another example of things that have to be dealt with.”
“I will be patient with this one at the moment,” he continued. “Obviously if it doesn’t move on there’ll come a point where I have to do something about it.
“It’s very obvious that we need to strengthen in that department so I’m just going to wait and see what happens over the next day or two.
“This isn’t the only keeper that we were looking at, if I’m going to be honest, we had two or three different options. It could be that we have to revisit another one, depending on what happens.”
And on the possibility of more incoming activity, he told us: “Other than that one I don’t see there being anything else before the weekend.
“We’ve been talking to another club about another loan, so there’s a possibility that might happen. With that one the guy we’re interested in needs to sign an extension to his contract, and until he’s done that the club won’t allow him to go anywhere.
“We’ve been in talks for six weeks on that one, we’d already started these talks before the end of last season, so it might happen, but then again it might not. I’m not planning on it at the moment, we’ll just see what happens.”
