Notts County boss Luke Williams has insisted that his side will be able to cope with the departure of Kairo Mitchell despite having just two strikers available, or so we thought.
It was announced last week that the Magpies had agreed a deal with fellow National League side Eastleigh that will see the Grenada international play his football at the Silverlake Stadium for the remainder of the season.
This leaves just two recognised strikers at Williams' disposal, with both Macaulay Langstaff and Cedwyn Scott in fine form this campaign which has seen them net 37 goals between them so far this campaign.
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But Mitchell impressed on his debut for Lee Bradbury's side, playing 90 minutes in their 1-0 win over Woking at the weekend, providing an assist for Vincent Harper's 51st-minute strike.
And the Notts chief was impressed with Mitchell's performance on his debut but emphasised the difficulty in the decision, made harder by the form of his two master marksmen.
"We know that Macaulay has been in brilliant goal-scoring form for the entire season and we know that he also works extremely hard for the team.
"You look at Cedwyn Scott who is a striker but has adapted to be an attacking midfielder and has still scored 13 goals, he is an incredible player - somebody that will run for the team and understands his duties for the team in all aspects.
"It's no disgrace on Kairo at all because I am sure that you saw the action from the Eastleigh game.
"Kairo takes the ball from his own half and takes a good touch and releases a good pass, then he is like a steam train running through the middle of the pitch in the way that he does, he's such a powerful athlete and is desperate to score and if the ball is delivered to him, 100% he scores his first goal for Eastleigh.
"That just says how strong the two guys are in front of him here and how good their level has been this season so far."
Mitchell's departure further fuelled rumours that another striker walking through the doors at Meadow Lane could be on the horizon for the second part of the National League season.
With the Magpies not affected by the closing of the transfer window last week, the club are still allowed to bring in more signings should they look to bolster their attacking options.
And while Williams insisted that the club is continually looking for striking options, he hinted that a player already at the club has the capabilities to fill that role if required.
"I think we are always looking and we have potential striker targets that we can try to bring into the club," said Williams.
"Every striker out there is wondering how on earth they would get into the team if they came here - so that can cause an issue because the guys have done so well.
"It would be wrong of me to tell a striker coming in that they would play in front of these guys because that is not the case.
"But I also feel like we have one member of the squad who doesn't play as a striker but could play there very effectively, so I feel like we have that option that we keep up our sleeve a little bit that if we have a crisis and we need to put somebody up front we have that body in the building.
"We are not restricted by the window so we can react quickly if something more significant was to happen."
