Steve Cotterill voices frustration at Shrewsbury transfer window

Cotterill and his head of recruitment Keith Burt pressed on until the 11pm deadline but were unable to strike any deals and add to the nine permanent signings already in at Montgomery Waters Meadow.

Town also went down to a last-minute transfer deadline night defeat to Crewe in the Papa John's Trophy courtesy of a stoppage time winner for the visiting Railwaymen.

Cotterill was keen to recruit another defensive midfielder as well as a right wing-back and it is understood Shrewsbury made approaches to add to their forward line in the final few days of the window, but another two transfers the manager this morning felt were 'definitely' arriving did not come off.

"There's nothing active at this moment, I've being on the phone like this pretty much since Saturday night, every hour," Cotterill said following the EFL Trophy Group C defeat.

"We've ended up coming up against a lot of blanks. Until this morning we thought there would be definitely two coming through the door.

"One's decided not to come because he didn't think he'd get in the team. Maybe if he looked at it tonight he'd have thought he would've done.

"Also we've been chasing somebody for quite a while now, I think we're going to run out of time on that one.

"We've got a couple of hours but I'm not sure it'll be completed."

Cotterill added on the late deals failing: "I'm not sure if we're being messed about a little bit, I don't know, it was someone we've been interested in a little while, maybe we thought the finances would get to something we could afford later on in the window.

"It picked up pace over the last two days, but I don't see that it's going to get over the line tonight.

"We could go and get a couple of people, I'm really not sure they're going to enhance us."

Cotterill did not hide his dissatisfaction with his much-changed side's performance in the 1-0 reverse to League One rivals Crewe.

The boss made nine changes but felt the performance was 'flat, 'after the Lord Mayor's show' from Saturday's win over Gillingham and did not feel those who came in gave themselves a boost for a first-team role.

"Its been a really difficult window, I would hate to mention the amount of people we've spoken to, met, Keith's been permanently on the phone the last couple of weeks," the boss added.

"We've got a squad of 20 with some goalkeepers, those players have to perform better with games like tonight.

"I understand that it's difficult for them when they're just thrown out there for 90 minutes, but then they need the 90 minutes, we need them on the field as long as we could."