Graham Potter insists Swansea City are close to bringing in new recruits on loan – but has refused to confirm they are poised to take centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers from Tottenham.
The Swans manager – whose unbeaten Championship team host Leeds United on Tuesday night – talked of using the loan market after four players left the club on transfer deadline day.
As yet, no-one has arrived, but Potter says the club are in discussions over a number of potential players and that the club’s American owners are aware of the need to improve the squad.
Carter-Vickers – a 20-year-old centre-back who spent last season on loan with Sheffield United and Ipswich and has been capped by the USA – has been linked with a move to the Liberty Stadium and Potter said: “I don’t want to speak about guys who are not here. He is not our player.
“But I would say it is fair we are looking to strengthen at centre-half. Joe Rodon and Mike van der Hoorn have done well and been positive, but clearly from a numbers perspective that is an area we can look to strengthen.
“We are working all the time. I am not worried, I am focussing on the game tomorrow and we will carry on trying to strengthen. There are wheels turning and we keep working to strengthen the group.”
Potter has overseen a positive start to the season with the Swans having taken seven points from their opening three matches.
But the team have rode their luck in all three games, surrendering countless goalscoring chances to their opponents, and Potter is insistent the owners have been made fully aware there is a still a pressing need to add to a fragile squad.
“I don’t think you should never get carried away by short-term results. Our wins do not mean we are the finished article, we have to improve.
“If you have bad results you are not the worst team in the world. It’s about the short, medium and long term but they (the owners) are aware of the need.”
Leeds currently sit second in the table and have already beaten Stoke City, Derby and Rotherham to give themselves a 100 per cent record.
It reflects an immediate impact made by their manager Marcelo Bielsa, the 63-year-old Argentinian who the Swans tried, unsuccessfully, to hire three years ago.
Bielsa has high priest status within the global fraternity of coaches and was once described as the best football coach in the world by Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola.
Potter is a self-confessed admirer of the former Argentina, Chile and Athletic Bilbao manager and said: “We are very fortunate to have him in British football.
“He has had an amazing career, hugely influential for lots of top, top clubs. He is one of those people who you have admired from a distance for a long, long time.
“Anybody in the game as long as he has been I am full of respect for. It’s going to be an interesting evening for me.
“You are aware of his career he has had and his methods are pioneering and creative.
“There are not too many in world football, coaching-wise who-are as influential as he is and has been. I think we are very fortunate to have him working in the United Kingdom.”