No loans in while Hatters reject offers for Beckwith and Dance

Town boss Paul Buckle isn’t expecting to make any last-gasp loan signings before today’s deadline closes, writes Mike Simmonds.

Having already added Simon Ainge, Arnaud Mendy and Jonathan Smith to his squad in recent weeks, Buckle confirmed at his press conference this afternoon he wasn’t looking to do anymore business.

Buckle said: “No, we’ve discussed it and I spoke to the squad this morning and told them I had no intentions of bringing anyone in.

“We’re always looking but I’m very pleased with the team and I don’t want to disrupt anything here. We’ve picked up a lot of points in the league, we’re still in the FA Cup and there’s so much football to be played and so much more to come from this group of players.

“I’m not someone who likes massive, massive change. I’ve got to give these players a chance.

“There was change with me coming to the club, I’ve not been here that long and I’m still working to get it how I want and I don’t think we’re far away at all.”

Meanwhile, Buckle admitted that two Conference clubs had failed in their attempts to sign James Dance and Dean Beckwith.

He continued: “James needs games. I could have loaned James out, but I decided against it. Yesterday it looked like he was going to go out.

“We had a club that wanted to take him, there were a number of clubs that wanted to take him.

“Yesterday I was thinking, yes lets do it. Then last night I had second thoughts. I rang James up and said, I actually want to keep you.

“We can’t bring anyone else in either and he’s looking very, very good. We’ve got a friendly arranged next week, we’re late in off the training field as I stuck another game on for him and the other boys.

“So I’ve got a sneaky feeling he’s going to play a part between now and the window opening again.”

Regarding Beckwith, Buckle continued: “Dean Beckwith is a fantastic lad to have around the place.

“Yes we may have loaned him out, we had the opportunity to do that, but he said he wants to stay and commit and back things up for now, which is great because on Sunday (against Mansfield) I was very tempted to put him on.

“If teams are banging balls forwad, Dean is a real good option if you want to shore it up and have three bigguns in the middle.”

The Town boss is not expecting anyone to leave on loan today either, as he added: “When you play FA Cup and there’s seven subs, we’ve not got anything over.

“I’ve got to be careful, if we get a couple of knocks then the pictures changes completely, so this is a discussion I’ve had with Gary (Sweet), leading up to the (loan) window.

“We’ve been very organised where that’s concerned. We’ve done very well with players we’ve brought to the club. I like a certain type of player, I like an honest player, who’s hard working, that’s what we need at the club.

“Players who are not going to come in and turn his nose up to going somewhere different to Kenilworth Road, or if the weather is a bit bad.

“We need this to get where we want to be and get out of this division. These are the type of players we need.

“I feel we’ve done that, we’ve brought good players to the club and want to give them a chance to express themselves.”

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