GREG Abbott vowed to deliver a striker this month after admitting City could not compete with the “extortionate” deal for Kieran Agard.

The former Bristol City forward joined MK Dons – City’s opponents on Tuesday – for an undisclosed club record fee on Thursday.

Agard had been high on Stuart McCall’s wanted list but head of recruitment Abbott revealed the figures involved were beyond them.

Abbott said: “It’s a massive deal, a massive commitment and more than we could get to.

“Agard was at the top of our list. If there are any guarantees, then you look at someone like Kieran Agard at his age and what he has done at this level.

“Working alongside James Hanson, he probably would have scored goals like a Nahki Wells. But the money involved is extortionate.

“There’s risk in any transfer but you look at the Premier League and only Man United, Chelsea and Man City were going to be able to buy Paul Pogba because of the amounts of money involved.

“People have got to be sensible and realise the same thing applies in the Championship and in League One with us.

“It’s almost a daily thing. From 8am to 6pm we are thinking and talking about strikers and hopefully we can get one that fits the bill.

“It’s high on everyone’s agenda; high on Stuart’s, the chairman’s, mine. We have been linked with everybody and all the obvious names.

“There isn’t a wealth of strikers who can come in and you’ll know will definitely score goals in League One – and you have to pay fortunes for the ones that will.

“Everybody has a (financial) framework. We’ve got a nice one but we’ve got to get the right striker in for the right money.”

City have begun the season by firing successive blanks, which has already left fans wondering where the goals will come from in a team that was one of the division’s lowest scorers before.

McCall wants a fourth forward before the transfer window shuts and Abbott hoped he had landed one this week.

He added: “We’ve been talking to one or two and I thought we were close to getting one of them. But it didn’t materialise for whatever reason.

“It’s an obviously concern for everybody and we are all fully aware of that.

“What happened in the summer didn’t help. A lot of work that should have been done with the recruitment disintegrated with the management team leaving.

“The work needed to get these people in the club only really started in July. In Olympic terms, we’re almost starting the 100m ten yards behind everyone else.

“But I’m not going to make excuses because that’s not my way.

“We’ll probably have to spend more than what we wanted to. But I really think we can persuade the chairman to do that if we give him the right one.

“I can guarantee we are doing our best to make it happen. We are all throwing names at it.

“We will find a striker. We’re just appealing for a bit of patience.

“People who know me will know I’ll give everything I’ve got to get it right.”