Dickov happy to bide his time in race to recruit fresh talent

Rovers’ squad may be among the smallest in League One, with a number of unproven youngsters included on the bench so far this season, but Dickov insists he will not be panicked into recruiting.

That has not stopped him and his staff putting in the hours during the international break to scout a host of players and build up their database of targets.

But with several other lower-division bosses also in the market for hidden gems at a bargain rate, Dickov admits that he has bumped into a fair few rival managers in the past few weeks – all looking for the same thing.

On the question of new arrivals, Dickov, who is without Curtis Main again this weekend, said: “I think we will be alright, for the time being. If something does come up that we feel will improve us, we might have a look at it. In the last two weeks, we must have covered, between us as a staff, about twenty-odd games. We are out there looking and keeping tabs on people with dossiers on players.

“If you look at the sides with bigger resources, a lot of their squads are already in place with quite big squads as well. Then there are a group of probably 10 other clubs that are in a similar situation to ourselves.

“You are looking at the same players and going to the same games a lot of the time.

“It was quite funny; I went to a non-league game on Tuesday night and there were another four League One managers at the game and they were all pretending that they were just there to take in a game.

“At this level, there are not massive finances, apart from maybe five or six clubs in the league. You have to get your recruitment right.”