Exeter City are hopeful of adding quality players to their squad before the January transfer window draws to a close. But are unlikely to have anyone new through the door before the visit of Leyton Orient at St James Park on Tuesday.

The Grecians did bring in talented young winger Tony Yogane on loan on Thursday from Brentford, with Joel Colwill having arrived on loan from Cardiff City earlier in the month. But a striker and centre backs are still a priority for City to add to the ranks, the latter especially as injuries have hit.

With Tristan Crama having been recalled by Brentford, who then sold the Frenchman to Championship Millwall, City's defensive ranks were depleted slightly, especially with skipper Pierce Sweeney already on the sidelines.

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But later that day, Johnly Yfeko suffered a hamstring injury that is set to rule him out for a significant proportion of the rest of the season. Then on Saturday, Jack Fitzwater went off injured with a hamstring injury of his own in the 3-1 defeat to Blackpool – while Kevin McDonald was taken off at half-time as he felt something in his hamstring.

It leaves Gary Caldwell’s men short in the defensive unit, and where the priority is. Cheick Diabate came on at half-time on Saturday and was 'excellent', the manager said, especially given his lack of game time having barely made the bench while out on loan at Bradford City in League Two. Ben Purrington was fit and available on Saturday, but wasn’t named in the squad. Teenager Ed James is also now fit again and is another option.

“We are looking at loans and permanent deals,” Caldwell said of what City are looking to do over the next week, as while Exeter now once again have five loanees, one of them in Kamari Doyle wasn’t involved in the squad, while Yfeko is out injured for a while.

“January a difficult month and we knew there could be a situation where Tristan goes back, but that is not the issue, the issue is injuries off the back of it

“The way he was playing, we knew it might happen, but players we had identified are now playing in their teams and players we thought we might get, now we can’t get, so we are having to look at different options.

“Clearly we need to get one in the building. We haven’t done it as we are looking for a quality that we think will make us better and it is difficult to find and then make happen.

“We have had one or two close misses of real quality players who would make us better and we will keep trying to find that. We were close to a few who were real high quality targets that would have made the team better.

“It is impossible to replace Tristan. This is the challenge. We have done brilliant to get him to the club when Bristol Rovers didn’t play him last year and he’s done brilliantly. Now that he’s left, we have to scour the market and get the best possible player.

“To replace him on the money we are given, it’s impossible to replace that level of player, and by the way that wasn’t the level of player which came to us, so we deserve a lot of credit for the level he became, but we need to find the next one.”