Busy Buxton aiming to bolster squad for festive period

Greg Young, Alistair Taylor, Niall Doran and Curtis Morrison all remain sidelined and McIntosh is making numerous phone calls to try to get at least one new face in for the weekend.

“I might bring in one or two before Saturday, it might only be one,” he said.

“We have four out injured and three of them don’t look like they are going to be back soon.

“You can only make the phone calls. Whether they come is a different matter. It’s difficult to get players.

“I am always working hard to try to improve the squad anyway but, as we have four out injured, I’m having to really look around at then moment.

“We’ve got Ben Middleton and Jack Broadhead on loan at the moment but we’re still a bit thin.”

McIntosh knows getting too many players in could backfire on him in a week when the heavy snow saw their game at Hednesford postponed.

He said: “There are a lot of games coming up. But sometimes you bring in all these players and then the weather hits you and you’re paying for loan players that you don’t actually play.

“It’s a tricky one, but we’ll just take it as it comes.”

On the injured quartet he added: “They are four players that would almost definitely start for us and it’s a big blow to have them all out.

“Alistair has just had a knee operation so he is still many weeks away yet. The operation didn’t find anything sinister in his knee other than a bit of cartilage that needed trimming.

“He will be a massive plus when he comes back for us but I don’t think that will be until possibly February to be honest.

“Curtis is the nearest to being back.”

McIntosh was delighted to see reserve player Ryan McDermott come off the bench and bag a spectacular goal on his debut in the Bucks 9-0 rout of Holbrook Sports in the Derbyshire Cup and earn himself an Evo-Stik registration.

McIntosh said McDermott would now be involved over the festive period and that others could follow from the reserves if needed.

“Ryan played in the cup match and performed really well,” said the manager.

“So he trained with us on Saturday and he will train again this week. He did really well on the night.

“I just felt that with us in the position we are with numbers, he was definitely the one who had shone and we wanted to give him a chance.

“I think he will be part of the squad now over the Christmas period as he performed in the match and he looks sharp in training too.

“We always want to give lads from the development squad and reserves squad opportunities if they do well, which Ryan has. He has a great attitude as well so we’re delighted to get him involved.

“There could be more. I’ve just brought the one in at the moment but there is no reason why the others can’t be encouraged by that.

“We will give people a chance if they have the right attributes.”

Saturday’s postponement was frustrating and McIntosh said: “We trained instead and worked the boys quite hard. That’s all you can do under the circumstances.

“We’ve just got to make sure we keep ourselves in good nick for when the next match comes, which hopefully will be Saturday.”

Buxton know how hard Saturday’s game at Grantham will be, having been beaten 3-0 at home by them two league games back.

“They are second for a reason – they are a really good side,” said McIntosh.

“But in that last game we missed opportunities before they scored so hopefully we can make it right and change that on Saturday.

“They did score two late goals but they did deserve the win – there’s no doubting that. I had no complains that day.

“But had we converted a couple of chances earlier on things might have been different.”