Phil Parkinson is pursuing his January shopping list but admits it is tough to prise players away at this time of the year.

The transfer window opened this morning with the City boss keen to supplement a squad that have already played 35 matches.

Parkinson is full of praise for their “amazing” effort but is keen to bring in a couple of fresh faces to share the workload. He said: “We’ve got to add some quality if we can but it’s never easy to get the players you want.

“We know who we’d like to bring in and the positions we’d like to fill and we’re working on them. It may happen soon, it may happen later, it may not happen but we’ve got to keep going.”

The mid-season window is the toughest market to deal in because of the limited time, allowing the selling clubs to play hard ball.

Parkinson added: “Clubs don’t want to give up good players in this particular period. That’s the problem.

“Teams are reluctant to let people go. Some chief executives might be keen to balance the books but managers don’t want to.

“The phone was glued to my ear all day on Sunday and prior to that. We’ve been speaking to players and other managers and we will try everything we can to freshen things up.

“We’ve got a group of players who have run through brick walls for this club in the first half of the season. The spirit we’ve shown has gone a long way. But you’re going to pick up a few injuries with the amount of games and I’d like to bring two or three players in to give everybody a lift.”