Crawley boss John Gregory admits his hopes of adding to his squad ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Scunthorpe United are “touch and go”.

Gregory says he is “certain” of bringing in two more players on loan before the window shuts next Thursday having signed goalkeeper Lewis Price from Crystal Palace on Monday.

But the Reds manager has met a series of dead ends so far in his search for reinforcements following his decision to put five players on the transfer list last week.

His hopes of signing Millwall striker Jermaine Easter have been temporarily put on hold although Gregory has not given up on resurrecting the deal next week.

Gregory said: “We need to improve the team but I don’t want to bring in three or four players who are just going to sit on the bench. They need to be good enough to come straight into the team and play.

“That makes it difficult but I am certain I’ll have two more in by the deadline. It’s touch and go whether we’ll be able to do anything this week as the goalposts keep moving.

“You identify players you want to bring in and everything seems to be going great but then the other club will pick up an injury and suddenly they don’t want to let the player go out.

“That is what happened with Jermaine. We asked the question about him but Ian (Holloway, Millwall boss) has got a problem with Scott McDonald so he is not prepared to let Jermaine leave just yet.

“He is a little bit concerned about leaving himself short so we won’t be able to do anything before the weekend but there might be a chance of something happening next week.”

Gregory has also confirmed that there have been no offers yet for the five players - listing Josh Simpson, Matt Harrold, Brian Jensen, Lewis Price and Connor Henderson - put on the transfer list last week.

He added: “They are still available if somebody wants to take them and we might be willing to let one or two others people go that we haven’t highlighted.

“Josh and Matt are still injured which complicates things a little bit but the players all have agents so maybe they need to get their agents to work a bit harder.”