SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens will make signing a new striker his top priority in the January transfer window, should funds be made available to strengthen the squad.

Town are currently shorn of their two most senior attacking options due to injury, with neither Kaiyne Woolery or Marc Richards having played since October.

Twenty-year-old loanee Elijah Adebayo and 18-year-old Academy product Sol Pryce are Wellens’ central striking options at present, with Keshi Anderson and Scott Twine largely having been preferred in deeper or wide roles this term.

Wellens also pointed at other areas in both midfield and defence that he would like to strengthen, but says adding more firepower up front will be his main focus come the new year.

“I would like another striker. If there is any money available, I want to spend it on a striker because I think they are the ones that can win you a game,” said Wellens.

“The other positions can keep you in games, but we need strikers to go and win us games.

“Apart from maybe Jermaine McGlashan, we haven’t got any out-and-out wingers. We haven’t got anyone who can stretch the game on the outside. That’s an area we can try to improve upon.

“I would like a holding midfield player – Matt Taylor has done great in there, but we are asking him to play two games in a week sometimes and I don’t think that is ideal.

“We will assess the situation with the centre-backs because both our starting centre-backs at the moment are on loan. There might be something there.”

For now, though, Wellens’ immediate focus is on helping Town continue to climb the League Two table.

Consecutive wins away at Port Vale and at home to Stevenage have moved Swindon up to 12th place and they are looking to make it three in a row when they host Newport County this afternoon.

Town could be just one point outside the play-off places should they beat the Exiles and have other results go their way, and Wellens wants to keep his side in the hunt before attempting to strengthen his hand in January.

He said: “It is tight, that’s why it is important that we string a few results together. It’s a stage of the season where we need to do that.

“We just want to stay in and around it until we get to January when the squad is going to need improving in terms of bringing our average age up a little bit.

“Before that, we are just trying to hang on to people’s coat-tails.

“If we can close the gap so we are in there, then great, but it’s about us keep picking up points and keep moving along, and then in January we will try to do something.”