Blackstock: Lack of signings won't hold Reds back

MATCHWINNER Dexter Blackstock insists Nottingham Forest are equipped to sustain their promotion push, despite the failure to add new signings in the January transfer window.

Reds boss Billy Davies was frustrated at the lack of new additions, after requesting the club make three signings during January.

But striker Blackstock, who netted twice to help Forest to a 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday, said that the dressing room is still full of confidence.

"We had not gone too far wrong in the 20 matches before the end of the transfer window in which we had been unbeaten, asides from the one game at Derby," he said.

"But that just shows the ambition of the manager, that he wanted to make us even stronger.

"He is disappointed because he wanted to strengthen – and what more could you want from your manager? He wants to take us a long way.

"But there is not any disappointment in the dressing room. We are very happy with the squad of players we have. We have great belief in what we have achieved so far this season.

"We do not sit in the position we are in without having good players here at the club already. We have shown that we can win matches in this division with what we have got.

"Nothing changes now. We will keep going, keep plugging away. It would have been nice for the manager to bring in the players he wanted to freshen things up, maybe.

"But it wasn't to be and we will keep moving forwards now."

Davies remains a frustrated figure however, launching a fresh salvo at the club board for failing to tie up a permanent deal for Polish midfielder Raddy Majewski – and insisting that it would be wrong to rely on the loan market to see them over the finishing line.

"There is a danger that he could get picked up by somebody else, with the performances he is producing. There is no doubt about that," he said. "We need to settle the lad's head down, get him signed up, get it done.

"We need something to give us a lift following what happened in January.

"As for loan signings, there are not too many Nicky Shorey's out there. I can go into the Premier League and bring in players who I know will not give their all.

"They will come here to play a game of football or two and get through to the summer break. They will go through the motions. Not because they are cheats, but because that is just the way it is with loan signings.

"We are a building club, we are a developing club. We have to continue to put the pieces into the jigsaw puzzle that can take us forward – not over a period of months, but over the next two or three years."