MICHAEL Appleton remains hopeful of making another signing before the weekend, but the Oxford United head coach admits improvements need to be made to their recruitment strategy.

The 38-year-old quickly assessed the squad needed at least four new faces after taking over last week.

Michael Collins became the first of those earlier this week.

Another deal is in the pipeline, although Appleton revealed some “frustrations” over the progress with one target after the 1-0 win at Oxford City on Tuesday night.

He was optimistic about getting another deal over the line before the visit to Didcot Town on Saturday, but did feel there were organisational issues behind the scenes which were making things difficult.

He said: “From a recruitment point of view, there are things that need to be put in place at the football club that have not been in place for a long time.

“Until we do that, we are going to be behind a lot of other clubs.

“I think the January window will be a hell of a lot different and hopefully you’ll see that.”

He added: “If you do your recruitment properly you’ve always got back-up.

“So if you don’t get one player, there’s a back-up and if you don’t get him, there’s always another one, so you have always got four or five.

“It’s a little bit of hard work and organisation and putting the people in the right places to do the right jobs.”

One player not on the wish-list is striker Gozie Ugwu, who played on trial in Saturday’s 2-1 win at Farnborough, but has now moved on.

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