Work is still ongoing at Ross County to bring in free agent with manager Malky Mackay happy with options at his disposal after early business in January transfer window
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Ross County manager Malky Mackay says work is still ongoing over their potential free agent signing.
The Staggies boss had said on the last day of the January transfer window that a deal was all but done to bring in an unattached player on a free transfer on a two-and-a-half year deal.
With no selling club involved, it did not have to be completed before Monday night's deadline, but at the time Mackay was hopeful it would be completed at some point this week.
However, with no confirmation of the signing, understood to be for an attacking player, as Saturday's visit to Dundee approached Mackay struck a slightly more cautious tone.
“That’s one we have been dealing with, and it’s an ongoing situation we’ve got there," he explained.
“If that comes off, great. As of right now I’ve got a squad that’s nearly fully fit, with a couple who have knocks.
“If we don’t get people in that I think will hit the ground running and go straight into the team, and be someone that I think can impact our first team, January is not really the window for me."
Adding to what was already at Mackay's disposal
That said, Mackay did bring two players to the club in January as defender Declan Drysdale and Kayne Ramsay signed on loan for the rest of the campaign from Coventry City and Southampton respectively.
Both of those deals were completed in the first half of the month, before County returned from their winter break, something that Mackay is doubly pleased with in hindsight seeing the number of transfers that went through on deadline day – as well as keeping the vast majority of his existing squad at the club.
"The fact that there are not a couple that were taken, or bid for, makes a big difference," Mackay insisted.
“Getting Kayne Ramsay and Declan Drysdale in at the start of the window means they are bedded into the club now.
“There was an awful lot of business done on that last day. We saw the domino effect hit, which means people will be trying to bed into clubs over February.
“There are a lot of things involved in settling into not just the club, but the area. We had a huge turnover in the summer where we saw how much that takes.
“If you move to another part of the UK you’ve all of a sudden got a lot of different factors involved, other than doing the job you are employed to do.
“I’m delighted to get those two guys in early in the window. The rest of the squad is a group that, as we have seen over the last five or six days, are putting a lot of effort into what they are doing at the moment, so I’m delighted with them."
The one that got away
A free agent was not the only player Mackay was after on deadline day, as he was also trying to pull off a loan deal that he rated as having a 50/50 chance of getting over the line.
The Staggies boss reiterated that it was not County's fault that it did not happen, with the parent club the ones to kibosh the proposed loan.
“It wasn’t through lack of effort on our part, or the player’s part," Mackay reasoned.
"It was just a situation that developed between the player and their club. There was nothing we could do about it and it didn’t happen.
“It was one that came up late, it wasn’t one we had been working on. We investigated it thoroughly and liked the look of it. I spoke to the player and he was keen, and the dialogue with the club was good as well – it was one of these things.
"Sometimes things like that happen quickly. You do a bit of homework and research, everybody talks to each other and everything is fine, but sometimes there’s a snag.
"It was nothing to do with Ross County’s ambitions to get the player, or the player not wanting to come. Sometimes there are other factors that we’ve got nothing to do with, and no capability of helping. That’s what happened, otherwise we would have had somebody in."
