NEALE Cooper could be ready to bolster his squad on the back of his club's money-spinning FA Cup run.

Pool have raked in around £300,000 thanks to Saturday's game at Sunderland in front of 40,000 fans, and their second round win at Burton Albion which was screened live on BBC1.

They receive 45per cent of Saturday's gate receipts, which will be in excess of £200,000, £27,500 from wins over Whitby and Burton and £50,000 from the live second round TV coverage.

And despite Pool's owners IOR carrying a near £4m-deficit from their six years in command at Victoria Park, Cooper, like Chris Turner before him, has never had a problem when it comes to asking chairman Ken Hodcroft for new players.

Pool are comfortable in tenth spot in the Division Two table, but Cooper is constantly on the hunt for new faces.

He has reshaped the squad this season, sending out a host of players on loan to Third Division clubs and making new signings at regular intervals.

Cooper currently has Chris Shuker on loan from Man City - Saturday's home game with Peterborough is the last of his month-long loan spell - and has five players out at other clubs on a temporary basis.

Lincoln are keen to sign Marcus Richardson on a temporary basis, providing Pool will allow the striker to leave on a free transfer.

The Pool boss said: "We don't set targets about promotion or whatever, but plenty of other people said we would go straight back down and we are answering them in the best possible way.

"I believe we need to add one or two players to the squad with a bit of quality, because we are not the finished article. The chairman knows that come January it is something I would like to do.

"We've had a bit of a hard run in the league, and only Queen's Park Rangers dominated us. We won at Oldham, who were one of the form teams, and I'm very happy with the way things are going.''

Meanwhile, Pool's reserves put five unanswered goals past their Middlesbrough counterparts in a behind closed doors friendly at Boro's training ground yesterday.

Martin Scott's side last played on December 10 and their next league game is not until January 14.

Joel Porter scored twice, with Andy Appleby, Ryan McCann and Steven Istead also on target.