John Rankin reckons his new signings helped his struggling Hamilton Accies produce one of their best defensive displays of the season in their narrow defeat to Ayr United.
And now he is determined to add further fresh faces to make sure they can do the business up front.
Accies sealed loans for centre-back Dylan McGowan from Kilmarnock and defender/midfielder Tom Sparrow on loan from Stoke City, managed by Accies legend Alex Neil, and the pair helped shore up the backline with solid debuts at Somerset Park.
But it was ex-Accies Josh Mullin who had the final say, with his deflected free-kick after 32 minutes earning the Honest Men all three points.
Rankin's men may still be bottom of the table and six points adrift of Arbroath, but he reckons he has seen plenty of positives defensively and is now focused on remedying their form in front of goal, which has seen them go five games without scoring.
He said: It's a disappointing result but I don't think there was a lot wrong defensively. I thought it was one of our best defensive performances.
"We looked strong, we didn't give away any chances. Fults has maybe one save to make.
"Over and above that I felt there was a desire to stop shots and stop crosses today, which probably hasn't been there before.
"Attacking-wise, though, we need to do more to score goals.
"You can see that. We looked toothless at times and when the ball was getting played into the box.
"We know where we need to strengthen.
"We have obviously been conceding goals so, first and foremost, we need to stop the goals going in.
"Today's goal comes off the wall. Could we defend it better? The only way we could do that is by not giving away the free kick in the first place.
"It takes a nick, there's not much you can do.
"But the next part of what we need to do is bring in more offensive, creative players.
"We need players who are going to score goals and be a threat.
"People who score goals are hard to find but we need to do that. We have to work as hard as we can to get another few over the line.
"If you are asking me where we are in the transfer window at the moment, we are not finished yet.
"We have got a good few to bring in yet and there will be a few going."
He added: "I spoke to Lee [Bullen, the Ayr boss] and a few of their players and they were saying we've got lots of good players, we can play some good stuff but they know we don't score many goals.
"So other teams are identifying that.
"We need to try and get ahead in games and get goals, but when you are not scoring goals that is easier said than done.
"Hopefully we can get attacking players in this week and cause a threat to the opposition now."
Until today it had been a frustrating start to the window for Rankin, with targets opting to go elsewhere.
But he revealed patience paid off with the two new boys, with McGowan impressing him so much that he was handed the captain's armband on his debut.
On his new signings, Rankin said: "We have been working on both for the best part of three or four weeks.
"It takes time to get players in and we know our place in the food chain, so it's been a case of being patient with them.
"Dylan I've got huge respect for. I know what he is as a man.
"He wants to lead, he wants to speak, he wants to lead by example but he also wants to coach kids through the games as we go.
"Tom we tried to get in the summer. We saw him then and identified him.
"But he's not played for a few weeks and we knew he would tire towards the end of the game.
"He only trained Tuesday and Wednesday but he is one who we think has huge potential and is one who can certainly help us.
"He's got a wee bit of dig, a good bit of desire and he's got great quality from set plays as you could see today.
"That will help us in that aspect but it's alright delivering the ball, we need players to go and attack it."
Follow Lanarkshire Live Sport on Twitter via @LanLiveSport, like us on Facebook or find us on Instagram for the latest sports news, pictures and video.
