SWINDON Town will not bring in a free agent striker unless one of the club’s current forwards picks up a serious injury, according to head coach Ben Garner.

Town signed versatile forward Alex Gilbert on loan from Brentford on deadline day, though his listed position being that of a winger rather than a forward left many feeling slightly deflated.

Not only was his position under scrutiny, but his age too. Most were hoping for an experienced forward to come in and help teenage striker Tyreece Simpson develop, but as a fellow 19-year-old, Gilbert and the Ipswich Town loanee are at similar stages in their respective careers.

Aside from revealing that Gilbert almost made it into Brentford’s Premier League squad for 2021-22, Garner believes the 19-year-old can add a different dimension to the club’s forward line, regardless of age or experience.

Asked whether Garner would look for a free agent striker before January, the Town boss said: “We’ve got strikers here – for me, forward players are forward players.

“I would class them as Tyreece Simpson, Alex Gilbert, Jayden Mitchell-Lawson, Harry McKirdy, and Harry Parsons.

“All of those players are able to play as a forward – whether that’s off the side, in a central position, or playing off someone else.

“I think we’ve got a number in the building that we’re really happy with, we’ve got good versatility there and different options.

“I don’t see us bringing in anyone else, unless we pick up a serious injury or something happens, and we felt we needed more depth.”

Garner revealed part of the difficulty behind bringing players in over the summer was the club’s transfer embargo – limiting the wages the club was able to offer prospective signings.

The Town boss said he was never going to be rushed or panicked into making a signing, and is happy to go with the current crop until January.

Garner said: “We looked at a number of options over the weeks. We’re under certain restrictions under the embargo which does limit certain options because we have a wage cap.

“We considered all options, and when it looked like maybe we weren’t going to get Alex we looked at two or three different options. But we weren’t convinced by them, and we didn’t want to take someone just for the sake of filling a space.

“We’re really happy with the squad we’ve got. We’ve got one eye on January too, leaving a bit of space so that we’re not having to get players out then just to get someone in.”