NON-LEAGUE: FRESH blood is needed at Canvey to help keep their promotion push alive according to manager Steve Tilson.

The Gulls squad for Saturday’s 3-0 win against Harrow Borough featured three academy players, Mitch Gilbey, George Cocklin and Tommie Glanville, amongst the substitutes due to the small squad size.

With Louis Dennis’ loan deal from Dagenham & Redbridge ending earlier this month and Leon Gordon leaving before Christmas, Tilson said the team need to get players in if they want their play-off challenge to stay on course.

“I think for us to be in and around the play-offs at the end of the season, we need to bring in some players,” he said.

“We are so thin on the ground at the moment it is unbelievable.

“It isn’t squad players we need either; we need to bring in players who are looking to start in the side.

“It is tough as we need to bring in the right ones with the right attitude and I have tried to bring a couple in but lost them to other clubs, but it is when you’re going well that you need to make improvements.”

The former Southend United boss said he has two main areas he wants to strengthen in terms of numbers rather than rely on youngsters.

Tilson said: “We need to add another forward because at the moment we have Bradley [Woods-Garness] and Jay [Curran] and if we lose one of them then we are in trouble.

“We maybe need to bring in another player into the middle of the park because [Kevin] Dobinson can’t play midweek because of work commitments and James Hawes has been carrying an injury for a couple of weeks.”

“It was an ideal scenario today to play the academy players as we were looking comfortable. They [Gilbey & Cocklin] both did well, but I still feel we need one or two starters to come in.”