ROCHDALE are unlikely to be busy shoppers in the transfer window as Keith Hill puts his faith in youth.

Six of the squad in the FA Cup win over Nottingham Forest last week were 20 or under and Hill would rather push the club’s own youngsters than recruit for the sake of it.

He said: “I’m in a position now where I can trust the younger players even more going into the second part of the season. I don’t think there’s a massive call for recruitment.

“We’re a bit shallow on defenders but I’m reasonably happy going forward into the next 23 games with the players that we’ve got.”

Callum Camps and Joel Logan both started for the first time in the Forest game and joined fellow former youth-teamers Jamie Allen and Scott Tanser. Two more Dale academy products were on the bench.

Dale’s upset win, which earned a televised home clash with Stoke in the fourth round, was a timely pick-me-up after back-to-back league defeats over Christmas against Scunthorpe and Fleetwood.

They have dropped to ninth spot – five points behind the Bantams.

But Hill, who recently signed a contract extension to keep him at Spotland until the summer of 2018, is pleased with their progress since getting promoted.

He added: “We’ve got the points that we wanted, regardless of what’s happened in the last two (league) games.

“We have not rested on our laurels. There has been a lot of effort put into the last couple of matches but no product and no performance.

“That is going to happen for Rochdale but we can’t allow the bleeding to continue game after game.

“When I listen to managers like Sam Allardyce and others who have been promoted, they say you can go seven, eight or nine games sometimes without winning.

“But the players have to find a way to fight their way through it and at times we’re going to have to have a siege mentality.”

Midfielder Thomas Cywka has returned to Blackpool after two months on loan. He had been pushed into the background by the emergence of 19-year-old Camps.