Brian McDermott heads into the January transfer window armed with the knowledge that he has the support of the club’s board as he looks to strengthen his squad.

The boss has spoken with managing director David Haigh and acting CEO Paul Hunt at length about his plans, and is already speaking with a number of his potential targets with a view to bolstering his pack.

“I’m going to get support from the board,” said the manager. “I had a good conversation with David Haigh on Wednesday and they are doing their best. We are probably in as good a place as we have been for a number of years.

“I’ve spoken to a couple already so that would be good if we could do something.

“There are a number of players that I have been talking to but it is so difficult to nail teams down to make decisions and sell players. Not many teams want to sell their players in the January window. It is a difficult window.

“Can we get someone in that will make the difference for us? That is what we are looking for. We need to take the pressure off Ross McCormack. Ross has scored a lot of goals but we need to take that pressure off of him.

“You have to buy players for today and for the future, that is really important to me. It is not just the case of signing five or six players just because you can, you have to bring in players that are going to make a difference now and will be of value in the future.”

The boss says he is hoping to avoid the end of transfer window scramble by recruiting sooner rather than later.

“That is a problem in itself, because I don’t want to wait until the death and I’m not one of those to leave it right until the death of the window,” he said. “All that drama might be good for TV, but it doesn’t do anything for me. I try to do things a bit earlier if I can.

“Obviously the last couple of games have been disappointing for everyone but I can’t dwell on that. I have to just try to go forward to get to where we need to get to.”