MARK Cooper has revealed that Wes Thomas is one of "three or four" striking targets Swindon Town have been monitoring ahead of the January transfer window.

Town saw a bid, believed to be in the region of £100,000, rejected by Bournemouth for Thomas this week and the Robins will not be going back in with another offer for the 26-year-old.

Instead they will turn their attention elsewhere, with Cooper saying: “I would say we’ve got three or four that are on our list and any of them we’d take. Whichever one we get the go-ahead on is good for us. I think we only need one forward.”

Cooper stressed that chairman Lee Power is the right man to be negotiating for new players this month.

He said: “With our chairman, he’s very experienced in that field and I don’t think anyone will stitch him up, that’s for certain. He’s a football man and knows the game so I think he knows what the right price would be for any footballer.

“He’s made no secret of the fact that we’ve bid for a striker at Bournemouth and he’s felt he’s offered enough for that one so we move on to the next one. We’ve got no worries with Lee that he’ll get stitched up on price.”

Cooper is targeting a “number nine” as his main priority in January, with Nile Ranger expected to depart the club in the coming days. However, he feels his pursuit of a central defender is now less urgent after Raphael Rossi Branco impressed off the bench at Bradford.

“With the emergence of Raphael Branco at Bradford I’m left wondering ‘do we need another centre-back’? Troy (Archibald-Henville) is not too far away as well. I think the centre-half issue is maybe not as big as the thought it might be,” he said.

“It’s been difficult (to look at players) because when we’ve been playing most of the other teams have been playing. You try to watch as many development games as you can but with the weather that’s been difficult.

“Our targets won’t have changed too much over the last couple of months. We know the type of player we’re looking for, we know where we’re looking and we’re hoping those players become available.”

Cooper took in Birmingham’s home clash with Barnsley on Wednesday as he kept tabs on potential targets.