DARREN Edmondson appears to be edging closer towards injecting fresh blood into his goal-shy Barrow AFC squad following Saturday’s frustrating 1-1 home draw with Welling United.
The Bluebirds hit the woodwork twice and had a goal disallowed as they failed to translate their superior attacking play into three points.
Barrow wasted a good opportunity to achieve back-to-back wins for the first time this season, having secured an excellent 1-0 victory at Tranmere last Tuesday.
Last week the AFC boss revealed he is searching for a new winger and, as he continues to assess his squad during this vital period, he indicated he may also try and further boost this attacking options.
Asked if he believes his current squad possesses sufficient goalscoring quality, Edmondson said: “People are getting chances, time will tell.
“But sometimes in football players don’t always get as much time as maybe they might want. You’ve got to grasp the bull by the horns when you’re creating chances like this, they’ve got to go in. And link-up play is also key to that.
“In the second half, when we were getting in good positions, that pass or that lay-off wasn’t good enough.
“We’ve got to improve going forward. If I have to look out of house then that’s what I’ll have to do because we’ve got to turn performances into results and we’re not doing that.”
With the transfer window closed, Edmondson still has different recruiting options available to him such as signing a prospect on a youth loan deal.
He added: “It’s the time of year now where one or two will be made available and if they’re the right ones and we think that they’re going to add something to it then we’ll look to do it.
“But if we do that it might mean changes and people have to go out elsewhere and free places up in the squad.
“At the moment performances are good, we’re creating chances and the top and tail of it is we’re not taking them.”
But there currently appear to be no guarantees over what extent Edmondson will utilise the transfer market or, if the need arises, which players or positions may be in the firing line should squad space need to be freed up.
When pushed to confirm that he is seeking a winger, potentially another attacker and that players could be shipped out, Edmondson added: “Maybe, that depends on what the chairman (Paul Casson) says about it and how we feel.
“At some point towards the end of October you’re more than a third of the way through the season and you need to then assess everybody, assess the whole squad and then see where we are.”
Cook’s 53rd-minute header cancelled out Steve Williams’ 42nd-minute own goal. The hitman has netted 10 of AFC’s 19 modest league total.
Edmondson was pleased with his side’s general performance but was left frustrated by the lack of killer instinct which denied them a deserved victory.
Striker Anthony Wilson was ruled out of Saturday’s clash with a minor hamstring injury. He was replaced in the side by Ashley Grimes, who failed to net his first goal of the campaign before coming off in the second half, with fellow forward Jason Walker making his entrance.
But Wilson will significantly boost AFC by making his latest return to action in Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Fylde, barring any further set-backs this week.
With regards to the possibility of him bringing in a new attacker (not referring to the winger option), Edmondson said: “I wouldn’t say definitely, it depends on who’s available.
“I’m not just going to do it for the sake of it.
“We will work with the ones we’ve got and Ant Wilson is back now, looking fresh and wanting goals so, again, that’s another dimension for us.
“So you’ve got to back what you’ve brought in, they don’t become bad players in a couple of months.
“Sometimes the forwards are the ones that lose confidence quickly, and also hit a good vein of form when they have probably not looked like scoring.
“So that’s where the rotation comes in, you’ve just got to keep it hungry and hope that somebody gets on the goal trail and is consistent. But at the moment there’s only Cooky doing that and we need to address it.”
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