PAOLO Di Canio will target two central midfielders in the emergency loan window now Swindon Town’s transfer embargo has been lifted, with one new face potentially arriving in time for the weekend clash with Walsall.

Although the Robins manager is only likely to be able to bring in three players on temporary deals with the amount of money he has to play with, following an equity investment by majority shareholder Andrew Black, Di Canio has been stripped of options in the middle of the park following injuries to Alan Navarro, John Bostock and Giles Coke earlier in the campaign.

With the news that Tommy Miller is also set to spend a significant spell on the sidelines – six weeks as he recovers from a quad strain – Di Canio is left with only Simon Ferry and 17-year-old second-year scholar Louis Thompson to fill in at the heart of the side.

Therefore, he admitted he will have to prioritise bringing in reinforcements in the middle as soon as possible.

“Already it was the plan to bring in a central midfield player, now if it is possible even two,” said the Italian.

“Already it was the plan before, when we had Tommy and Louis and Simon Ferry fit. The people should not think now that Louis Thompson can play regular football every game, every three days.

“He was fantastic (on Tuesday) because it’s a different level of intensity and he was brilliant. Now I know I can count on him more but you need someone you can rotate.

“The problem is, in two weeks’ time we will have Simon Ferry all empty or nearly injured of maybe injured – I hope not but this is normal.

“For any athlete it is difficult, you can imagine the ones who have to be in midfield and shoot up and down and across for 95 minutes.

“We are with one okay, and then we are talking with another two players.

“I was happy with the way the way the team performed so I don’t see why I have to change a lot but with this guy it can happen in the next two days, if something goes the way we want.”

Di Canio explained that Miller picked up his knock inside the first 30 minutes of the Capital One Cup clash with Aston Villa last week but continued to play, exacerbating the problem.

He said: “It’s a dead leg but a big dead leg, there’s damage to the fibres. There was a lot of damage, strain of the second or third level. It came from an impact he had in the Aston Villa game after half-an-hour.

“I had to thank him for his courage and for his adrenaline because he kept going for another hour, made the damage bigger and the haematoma is all around the quad and he will take six weeks at least.

“That is a big loss.”