Darren Moore happy to leave Doncaster Rovers' transfer dealing to others for now

Tenth-placed Rovers are at sixth-placed Sunderland in Friday's televised game and that, says Moore, means that for him, transfer dealing has been pushed into the background.

The former defender is keen to add two or three new faces to his squad before the deadline a week on Friday, but his early-January optimism has been unfounded.

Once upon a time, recruitment was all on the manager's shoulders, but now the responsibility is shared.

“At this stage of a week when the game is nearly upon us I just focus on the match and leave it to the powers that be (to deal with transfers),” Moore explained. “My focus is on the job and the game and trying to make sure we're prepared for that.

“It's a really important match on Friday so it's really important myself and the squad are focused on that.

“I feel we've got the right personnel within the club to allow me to move my attention away from the targets I've identified. You have to trust them and leave them to get on with it. Then I can get my head down and work towards the game.

“For me it's about making sure the team is working to our maximum.

“This game moves week to week, game to game, day to day. People here and monitoring that and you can stay on something and maintain your focus on it if it's going to take some time.

“We've got a lot of work to do on the training ground but we need experience and talented youngsters across the board who will give us a lift and the right fit.”

Moore has only one new injury to deal with, winger Kieran Sadlier picking up concussion in last week's 1-0 defeat to Coventry City. It makes the return of Matty Blair after a groin operation well timed.

“He broke his nose at the weekend and had a bit of concussion, so Sads is unavailable for this weekend because we're following the concussion protocol,” said Moore. “We follow the guidelines, so it's out of our hands. Sads's health is far more important to us.

“He put his face in where he thought he would get a goal and the defender got his head to it and unfortunately Sads has come off with a broken nose and a little bit concussed.

“We hope he'll make a quick recovery but the only time we'll find out how his nose is is when we're back in training on Monday.

“Rakish Bingham and Matty Blair are potentially two who could come into that role. We'll look at the squad in the next 24 hours.

“At the moment the squad seems okay.”

Blair is ready and raring to go, albeit he does not yet have 90 minutes in his legs after returning from the bench at Bristol Rovers.

“Fitness-wise I'm better, it's all very positive,” he declared.

“It was a misdiagnosis. It was originally targeted as a six-week injury and I did five of the six weeks rehab and I was progressing but in the last week we went into sprint work and I just couldn't sprint. I said to Chats (Jonathan Chatfield) our physio it wasn't right and I needed to get it rescanned.

“We went to see a second specialist who diagnosed it as a full rupture which needed an operation straight away which would put me out for 12 weeks.

“The disappointment is I would have been back five weeks earlier but you get on with it and don't look back. It happens in life, mistakes are made, deal with it. I've just cracked on and now I feel good and ready to go again.

“I'm pushing every day in training. I still need a few more minutes, whether it's from the bench or starting.”