Brabin hampered in striker search

The Hatters boss is desperate to land a forward before the 5pm deadline on Wednesday, but as of yet, has been unable to tie up any deals, finding his progress blocked by clubs wanting too much money along with Town’s current status in the Blue Square Bet Premier.

Brabin said: “The time scale is hard, we’ve set our sights high. For players in this division, clubs are wanting unrealistic money. They say it’s not unrealistic, but the sort of figures they are banding around have never ever been mentioned in the same breath with these clubs.

“To me that’s unrealistic. There are a couple of issues with players from above, trying to convince players from clubs from above Division One and possibly even higher to come into the Conference.

“Everyone knows the history of the club and it’s a fantastic club, but we’re in the third year of being in the Conference and it’s a bit harder to attract people.

“But people are interested. We hope to be close to certain players, but I’m not throwing all my eggs in one basket.

“I’m delighted with the group of players we’ve got here. We’re looking for someone who’s more ruthless in the box, but it’s got to be right.

“I want people to come here because they want to play for this club, play for me and hopefully be part of something.

“I’m not the type of manager who’s going to throw money, I want there to be a passion rather than a financial one.

“We are chasing 24/7. I’ve spoken to people, there’s definitely a lot of interest and we’re close to a few thing, but at the moment we can’t pin all our hopes on one thing.”

Forest Green striker Reece Styche recently signed a new deal to end any further interest from Luton, while other targets Jon Shaw and James Constable both scored for Gateshead and Oxford United respectively at the weekend, which Brabin admitted further weakened his position.

He added: “In football things change all the time. All the potential targets that people know about have all scored goals, that changes things.

“People one minute want to join there and then the next minute they’re scoring goals and changing minds. It’s a lot more in-depth. People with quality, people don’t want to let them go especially when they’re scoring goals.”