Jack Ross has revealed that he hopes two new players will join Dundee United at their pre-season training camp this week in Spain.
The Tangerines kicked off their summer recruitment drive last week with the signings of Steven Fletcher and Dylan Levitt.
However, Ross admitted that his squad is still well short of where he wants it to be once they get stuck into competitive action.
The United head coach is targeting a new goalkeeper following the departure of Benjamin Siegrist, but is also looking for depth in a number of positions.
He said: “We need depth massively. We’re still significantly short, in my opinion, of the depth of squad that we need.
“But we know that as a club. It’s not a fight to get that thought across. There’s agreement with it. An identification of players is there, it’s just the next part, the hardest part, which is recruiting them.
“That’s for a variety of reasons. We’ve still got a bit of work to do and we might not get it all done before the start of the season. That’s just the nature of when I came into the job.
“I don’t know if we’ll get any players in before we travel. We’re still hoping that when we’re over there, we might have ones who can add to the group.
“It would be nice to do that, it would be nice to have at least another two, maybe more than that before we go into the Sunderland and Fleetwood games because that starts to become much more real in terms of our preparation.”
United have been linked with a move for the former St Johnstone goalkeeper Zander Clark but Ross refused to comment on specific players.
However, he is well aware of the need to get a new goalie in before the season kicks off.
He said: “That (the search for a new goalkeeper) has been one that’s been underway for a while. We feel as though we’re getting closer but we kind of need to get that one dealt with or boxed off as quickly as possible.
“Is that a priority over others? No, they’re all priorities. But certainly that, because of the work we’ve been doing, it’s one we want to get boxed off soon.
“Because we’re having to play catch up, and the number of players, it would be remiss to go through them all. We’ve had enquiries, speculation, and pushed things along in certain areas.
“Hopefully the work we’ve done has been vindicated with the two we’ve already brought in.”
United will spend the next several days in Spain as part of their pre-season preparations.
Their first competitive game of the campaign is against Kilmarnock on the opening weekend of the Premiership.
They will then enter the Europa Conference League at the third round of qualifying.
Ross said: “Because we’ve got a good training facility at St Andrews, we’re always in a good position in terms of we can get a lot of quality work done. We’ve done a lot over the last however many days and done a significant number of sessions.
“The work has been good. But a change of environment is good. A change of scenery helps because it’s relentless throughout pre-season in terms of the work that you do.
“You spend so much time with each other. You eat together, you recover together. I’m looking forward to it, I’ve always enjoyed them and the quality of work we should get done when we’re over there justifies it.
“I enjoyed them throughout my career. I liked them because from a recovery point of view, I had a young family as well, it was nice to work hard on the training pitch and then recover without any other distractions.
“Players of a certain age, at certain points in their life, feel the same. The work now is pretty relentless for players. We’re only there for four days, well six, but it’s four days of work. There’s not a lot of time to do anything else but train, which I’m sure the players are delighted to hear.”
