PAOLO Di Canio will not dip into the loan market to bring in short-term goalkeeper cover following the news that Mattia Lanzano is expected to miss the start of the season for Swindon through injury.

Lanzano has not featured in any pre-season friendlies in England after taking a knock to his ribs in training, and will not play in today’s match with Championship side Reading at the County Ground.

Mark Scott is also injured, leaving Phil Smith as the only fit first-team goalkeeper available and the former Crawley man is almost certain to start in the League Two opener against Crewe a week today.

However, Di Canio has no plans to bring in cover from elsewhere and will instead promote youth team keeper Leigh Bedwell, who was an unused substitute in the 4-0 win over Cirencester on Monday, to the bench.

He told the Advertiser: “I would prefer to bring up Leigh (Bedwell), a 17-year-old goalkeeper who is our player already. At this age I feel goalkeepers should have the knowledge to play in the first team.

“Even though he is not very tall his reactions are good and his ability to recover is good. He has quality and I feel he has already learned a lot with (goalkeeper coach) Domenico Doardo in just 10 days.

“So I would much prefer to develop him. He is already good and he can improve.”

Di Canio is of the belief that if a player is made available to go out on loan at short notice, then he is unlikely to be any better than what he already has available.

He added: “I don’t like to bring a goalkeeper in for a short period who is probably not at a high level of quality.

“It means nothing to bring a player on a short term deal here because there must be a reason he is available. Maybe he is not fit or has no team, or his team wants to kick him out and we don’t want this.

“We want a goalkeeper who, once Mattia (Lanzano) and Mark (Scott) has recovered, can still challenge the goalkeepers.

“This is the way we will do it. We will use our own young keeper to come up and develop.”