GORDON STRACHAN has reaffirmed his desire to add new faces to his Middlesbrough squad.

The lack of strength in depth in Strachan’s squad was painstakingly obvious on Saturday when he had to name four teenagers on his bench, with Academy players Bruno Pilatos and Cameron Park joining inexperienced Luke Williams and Joe Bennett.

While the quartet might be highly-rated, Strachan would prefer to pit them into action in a team full of confidence rather than involve them in times of struggle.

The manager hopes to hear good news from chief executive Keith Lamb soon, even though he accepts there will be no new signings before tomorrow’s trip to Doncaster.

But after Strachan – braced for increased interest in Adam Johnson this week – was let down by Gary Caldwell, when the former Celtic defender joined Wigan, he will not be banking on any deals until they are past the post.

“We have to bring more players in, just for the players’ sake,” said Strachan, who remains interested in Wayne Routledge, Scott McDonald, Leon Best and Kevin Phillips, among others.

“If you have someone in the building for 48 hours and he disappears then you can’t guarantee anything. If you can get that close and it falls through then you can’t say how close you are.

“I can’t say we are 70 per cent, what does that mean, does it mean he is in the hotel with his wife? If his kids are there, does that mean it’s 80 per cent? If his agent is there, is that 90? At the moment there’s nobody coming through the door, but Keith has been working on it for three weeks.

There’s a lot of brinkmanship, that’s business.”

The need for recruits has intensified following further injury problems. Strachan had 11 players unavailable for the draw with Swansea and then he learned Chris Riggott, Gary O’Neil and Tony McMahon all picked up problems ahead of tomorrow’s match.

“If we can get everyone fit then fine, but I can’t see that,”

said the Boro boss. “Jonathan Franks was taken in with appendicitis on Friday and he has been good for us. That’s the way it has gone.

“I think it was the first time we had come from behind to get something at home for quite some time. You can find negatives, but you can find positives. I can’t make a song and dance about things, we have to deal with it.”

Saturday saw the Riverside’s worst league crowd, but Strachan sympathises with the fans.

“I didn’t feel let down by the fans. Life is hard sometimes,”

he said. “We have to do more to get them back. If you are winning then the crowds go up. Every club has the same problem. If you play well the crowd will turn up. If you don’t play so well the crowd will go down.”