Chris Hughton spoke of his concern as Nottingham Forest suffered a second successive Championship defeat at the start of the season.
For the Reds manager, further reinforcements cannot come soon enough as the club look to strengthen in the remainder of the transfer window.
Summer arrivals Jordi Osei-Tutu and Philip Zinckernagel both put in good performances as the hosts were beaten 2-1 by Bournemouth.
But with Forest target Morgan Rogers believed to have been in attendance at the City Ground, Hughton is eager to add to the three additions he has made so far.
“We need people in full stop. The ideal situation would be to have got players in as early as possible, but it’s been a difficult window - not just for us, but for most clubs,” he said.
“It’s not through lack of effort or trying that we haven’t brought players in.
“We know we have to strengthen the squad, that goes without saying. Whether that’s in the next few days or weeks, I don’t know, but that’s our intention.”
He added: “Every defeat worries me, at any stage of the season.
“Winning games is what the sport is about. You want a team that can pick up points, be competitive and win football matches.
“It always worries me when we lose any football match.
“We’ve got another one here on Wednesday night (against Blackburn Rovers). We can’t start feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to dust ourselves down and make sure we continue to show a lot of the good things we did today, but be more resilient.”
After starting brightly against the Cherries, the Reds fell behind in the first half when David Brooks fired past Brice Samba.
Hughton’s men then got back on level terms through Scott McKenna’s header from Philip Zinckernagel’s free-kick after the break, but their opponents reclaimed the lead 10 minutes later through Phil Billing.
Goalscorer Brooks was sent off for a second bookable offence on the hour, leaving Bournemouth down to 10 men. But Forest were unable to make the most of their numerical advantage.
It follows defeat by the same scoreline at Coventry City in their opening game, and was not the way they wanted to mark fans being back at the City Ground for a league game for the first time since March 2020.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Hughton. The atmosphere was brilliant, and in difficult periods of the game they lifted us.
“But the game is about goals.
“In possession, at times we were good and showed glimpses of quality. There were some decent performances.
“But we conceded two really soft goals. If you give a team that have got quality players like they have moments, then they can hurt you. That’s what they did.”
