Manager Steve Evans wants to bring French striker Pierre Joseph-Dubois back to Crawley Town.
But the Reds boss admits he may have to go with what he has got as the club try to fill the financial black hole created by the collapse of the Setanta TV deal.
Joseph-Dubois, 31, joined Reds for pre-season training last week. He scored seven goals in seventeen starts in 2007/08 before joining Weymouth.
Evans would also like to sign a second goalkeeper to give Simon Rayner competition for places but, like Joseph-Dubois, that is unlikely to happen unless new broadcasters are found to replace Setanta.
Evans said: “We’d had our budget reduced by 20% anyway but Setanta collapsing has cost us a further £100k. There is no other area at a club such as ours where you can cut £100,000 other than the players’ budget.
“I was at the club until 11pm on Wednesday and 9pm on Tuesday with the board to find ways of balancing the books and if possible strengthening the squad. At the moment we go with what we’ve got but there could be a chink of light and we might be able to do something with Pierre and possibly a goalkeeper later in pre-season.
“Pierre asked if he could train with us. We have had opportunities to have other guys on trial but we don’t believe in giving players fairy stories.
“Players incur costs when they come on trial and we don’t believe in using them simply to make up the numbers in pre-season friendlies.”
As it stands Crawley will be operating with a smaller squad than last season when the Blue Square premier kicks off on August 8th, but Evans still thinks it is stronger than the one which finished ninth and challenged for the play-offs for much of the campaign.
Evans added: “We’re a couple down squad wise but we are better than last year. We could pick a number of starting XIs that would be stronger than last season.
“Last year we produced some special performances but we lacked strength in depth and we didn’t carry a lot of luck with injuries, decisions or the fixture schedule.
“But we need to put that behind us and focus on the positives. We have a very decent squad of players but the benchmark in the Conference this season has been lifted.”
