MORTON manager Jim Duffy has not ruled out making another signing before the transfer window closes — but says he is not actively searching and is delighted with the squad he already has.

Before Christmas, the Ton boss stated that he was looking to make one or two new additions in January and swooped to sign Declan McManus, left, on loan from Fleetwood Town shortly thereafter.

When asked if there was likely to be any further business before Monday’s deadline, Duffy said that it would depend on circumstances changing or an unexpected opportunity arising.

He told the Tele: “I’m not actively looking but things can change in football. Somebody could come up out of the blue or somebody could come in for one of our players.

“Or somebody who’s not in the team regularly might think they want to get regular first-team football.

“I’m not saying that to suggest it is the case because there is no suggestion of any of those things at this moment.

“But there is still time and therefore you can never tell. Somebody might come in looking for a player and you present that opportunity to the 
player.

“They might not fancy it and want to stay and compete, and that’s fair enough, or they might like it, in which case it opens the door to bringing in someone else.

“But, no, I don’t have anyone on the horizon as we speak at this moment in time that I’m consciously looking to bring in.

“Would I be quite happy to go with my current squad for the rest of the season? I wouldn’t be quite happy – I’d be absolutely delighted.

“When everybody’s fit I think we’ve got a really good team and a good squad, and we’ve just been a bit hampered because we haven’t had a spell when we’ve not had important players injured.

“Joe McKee and Michael Tidser missed the start of the season, Ricki Lamie and Gats were missing, there’s Frank [McKeown] and Peaso [Peter MacDonald] and so on.

“We’ve had really important players missing for a concerted period of time right through the season, so if we can have a relatively healthy, injury-free period, I’m delighted with the players I’ve got.”

Playmaker Tidser recently returned to action after a nine-week lay-off, coming off the bench for the last 12 minutes of Monday’s 2-0 loss to Rangers. And Duffy has his fingers crossed the 26-year-old’s recovery signals an upturn in fortunes when it comes to the treatment table.

He added: “We hope that from now on in we can have a healthy group of players. That just gives you more competition within the squad.

“And it also gives us more options to look at if we do have to change it during a game; gives us more strength in depth if we have all our players available.

“No disrespect to the young ones, but it’s a very competitive division so ideally you want boys with a wee bit more knowledge of the game if you’re going to have to change it from the bench.

“For a few weeks there, we had a very, very young bench and hopefully in the fullness of time some of these boys will come through. 

“But at this moment in time we want to have as strong a squad as possible to compete, and if we’ve got everybody fit and healthy, we have got a decent squad there that can compete.”

Meanwhile, Duffy says the fact his side only received one booking on Monday night was testament to the fact they tried to be play football rather than be overly physical.

He explained: “One thing I do want to point out is that in a game where you maybe get the stick for being ultra-competitive when you play Rangers, we had one booking.

“A lot of times when teams play Rangers they are criticised for being overly competitive, but we PLAYED Rangers on Monday night, we didn’t kick them off the pitch. 

“We played two footballing midfielders as opposed to defensive midfield players, and went and played, tried to be organised and stand up and play the game in a competitive way.

“It’s easier sometimes to just kick the opposition, it’s harder to match the runs and stay with them, and I felt we did that part very well.”