Careful Mansfield Town taking time in transfer window

The first week of the current window has already passed, and as Stags prepare to try to halt their appalling home record when high-flying Forest Green Rovers visit on Saturday, assistant manager Joe Dunne said: “In any window anything can happen in one hour or in one week, two weeks, or three weeks. When things happen, they'll happen and everyone will know.

“You can promise and hope for. But until they are signed and in the building you never know.

“We have to be really astute who we bring in. We have to think of the dynamics of the group as well.

“Ins and outs are the nature of any window. The key thing is everyone else will be busy as much as ourselves. We are active. We're talking. We're looking to do things. That's wise. But we will work with what we've got until that change happens.

“We will keep trying to improve the players and make sure we can also improve the squad.

“We feel the players have put a good shift in in training and we want to give everybody the best opportunity to show what they have got.

“I would not want to give away the types of areas we are looking to improve. That's between us here as a staff and a club to to do our business wisely.”

New manager Graham Coughlan said after Saturday's 1-0 home defeat to lowly Grimsby: “At the end of the day I have inherited a squad of players that needs help and maybe needs shaking up.

“I can't hang around. One manager has lost his job with this group of players already and I don't want to be the second one.”

Dunne agreed, saying: “The squad here has been together for a period of time now. They deserve every chance but, realistically in football, a new manager will want to bring fresh ideas and that's something we're exploring in this window.

“How many that is we don't know yet. It would be wrong to say how many that is as we think, based on previous, there is enough here to be able to spark things again.

“We just have to make one or two tweaks to the group. But to do it overnight would be very difficult with the amount of games we've had.”

Dunne admitted they may have to be patient before they can achieve the required blend.

“The speed of how a new manager can get the squad how he wants is guided by what you've got and what you can get in. One window is one window and there's another one further down the line,” he said.

“We will so what be can to improve this team immediately if we can and then look to slowly progress and work in the next one.

“We have done our due diligence in what contacts we need to make after identifying the areas we want to improve.

“The next steps are always difficult as, not just us, there will be a whole host of other teams looking to bring in the same type of player in the same type of position.”