Motherwell boss hopes to 'announce new signings quickly' in the January transfer window after their defeat to Rangers left them staring at a potential relegation battle in 2023.
The Ibrox men weren't at their best but still eased past the Steelmen in the end, with goals from Alfredo Morelos, Connor Goldson and Malik Tillman making it four wins from four for new Gers boss Michael Beale.
However, the Steelmen are toiling with injuries and illness, with striker Kevin van Veen dropped to the bench after he wasn't deemed fit enough to start.
Their issues also led to Hammell turning to two 16-year-olds in debutant Luca Ross and Lennon Miller, who made his maiden league appearance, for the last half hour.
Motherwell's 10th defeat of the season saw them slip to 10th spot in the Premiership and they are just three points off the bottom of the table heading into the new year, so Hammell says he hopes to add quickly to his side after the bells.
He said: "I think we saw today where we are at. Half the boys on the pitch have been ill.
"We couldn't start Kevin because of his illness and we are missing a few injury wise.
"So we are looking to bring a couple in as soon as we can. We can't even fill the bench. We brought two 16-year-olds on, who did well.
"But if you look at the reverse of that, who Rangers are bringing on, it shows the gulf and where we are at just now with personnel.
"It is clear and obvious when people come to the games that we are light.
"Every single player we have got, you saw them tonight.
"That's including kids who are straight out of school so it is important we add, for sure.
"We are constantly working on it. We are hoping to get some business done early but we need the right balance.
"We need help quickly but also the right people.
"We have got targets ready and hopefully we will be able to announce something as quick as we can from the start of January."
Motherwell did have their chances, particularly early on, as Connor Shields also pounced on John Lundstrum's error at the halfway line before Allan McGregor raced from his goal and did enough to put him off.
Dean Cornelius was twice denied and substitute van Veen had a second half goal ruled out for offside after a VAR check.
So Hammell was left ruing a familiar failure in his side.
He said: "It was a tough one. I felt we had a lot of the game in the early parts. That was the plan to come here and start the game well, and I felt we did that.
"When we are in the early stage we need to take advantage of it with the amount of territory we had and the areas we got into, we were just not clinical enough.
"It's the story of our season so far and the half-time team talk was one we've given before. There were things that were good but we weren't clinical enough and the goals we lost were cheap as well.
"When you do get into those areas, we don't get there as often as we do in other venues so you need to be clinical.
"You need to have belief.
"If you look at it on the flip, when Rangers get into those areas they are clinical and they punish you so these are things we need to be better at and learn from."
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