Darlington boss Mark Cooper is still confident of bringing in a striker before Saturday’s FA Trophy clash with Bath City.

The Quakers boss is eager to bring a goalscorer to the club and hopes the deal to bring the player to Darlington can be completed before Bath travel to the Northern Echo Arena.

Cooper is still hoping he can persuade midfielder Marc Bridge-Wilkinson to sign a permanent deal with the club after impressing in his loan-spell from Carlisle United, which ended last week.

Another midfield player is also on Cooper’s radar but he admits it is proving difficult to complete deals, with other clubs waiting in the wings to offer more money.

Quakers have scored six goals in their last three games, which is an improvement for one of the lowest scoring teams in the Blue Square Bet Premier.

But the former Kettering boss still wants to add to his attacking options and revealed the player in question is currently at a League One side.

Cooper said: “I think the chances we’ve missed you’d have to say scoring has been letting us down and that’s where we need to strengthen and we’re constantly striving to bring somebody better than what we’ve got.

“We’re still trying. When you’re trying to bring players in the transfer window, one minute you think the deal’s dead then 10 minute later you get a call to say it’s back on.

“So at the minute we’re no further forward, I’m very hopeful we’ll have a striker in before Saturday. The Bridge-Wilkinson deal isn’t dead yet and we’re still working on that too.”

Although he is still in the hunt to bring new faces to the club, one player Cooper is keen to keep a hold of is on-loan Leicester City midfielder Aman Verma.

The 24-year-old’s loan spell at the Arena ends on February 2 but after some impressive performances, Cooper hopes his loan can be extended.

It was Verma’s deflected goal that got Quakers on their way in the 3-1 win over Histon on Tuesday night and Cooper admits he was relieved to come away with three points.

Cooper said: “He’s a good player, he’s a big lad, athletic and fantastic ability and he scores goals so he’s the kind of player we want to keep.

“It was relief to get the three points. It can be a banana skin playing the bottom of the league team and if you don’t score early on it can become a long night.

“I’m pleased we got the three points but not too pleased with the performance, we know that we know we can be better but job done and we now move on to the trophy.”