Paul Hurst: No early transfer business for Shrewsbury Town

The Town manager, who takes his side to Southend today before a Montgomery Waters Meadow clash with Oldham on New Year's Day, is not expecting any new faces until after the West Ham FA Cup tie on January 7.

Hurst is on the hunt for a left-back to replace Junior Brown and to bring in a wideman to add more options on the wings.

Last January Town announced the signing of Toto Nsiala barely 12 hours into the opening of the window.

He said: "One or two things have progressed very slightly. No-one will be in for the Oldham game and I wouldn't envisage anyone coming in until after the West Ham game.

"Things will hot up and gather pace and I'm sure by the end of January we'll have one or two in. When that will be is very open to debate.

"There might be a couple of new players to take to and maybe buy a shirt with a name on the back."

Hurst explained how the intricacies of the January window can mean that deals take a while to be agreed and finalised.

Shrews have so far moved to secure Ben Godfrey's loan until the end of the season, while Niall Ennis has returned to Wolves.

"Quite a bit of it is up in the air," he added. Maybe some players have other options, maybe their parent club needs them.

"The situations are quite a bit out of your hands, you just put the interest there, try and find out if you can afford the deal and if it's something the player would want to do.

"You try to tick boxes among the way until him being definitely available. Then you hopefully have a little bit of a head-start.

"It's just a waiting game really and hopefully we'll have some positive news."