Crawley boss Steve Evans is ready to plunge into the loan market after turning down the chance to sign three players before last night's transfer deadline.

Evans held talks with a hat-trick of targets yesterday but says they were asking for too much money.

He will instead wait until the window for loan deals re-opens at the end of next week to strengthen his squad.

Evans said: "I spoke to three players and we could have brought them in but what they were asking for was beyond our boundaries. I talked it over with the club financial director Sue Todman and decided that we should not go ahead with it.

"I did not just want to make a snap decision. People have done that at this club in the past and we ended up with players on £1,400 a week.

"We are not going to do that again and I just didn't get the right gut feeling with these players that I got with the likes of Tyrone Thompson, Glenn Wilson and Jon-Paul Pittman.

"If I have got quality players on fair wages then I'm not going to take a gamble on players I'm not sure about.

"But I expect a lot of activity in the loan market at the back-end of next week."

Highly-rated defender Jamie Stevens, pictured, is staying with the club following a three-day trail at Championship club Ipswich.