Dundee have been dealt a bitter blow with the news that Craig Beattie will be sidelined for up to three months.
The former Scotland striker hurt his knee during the game against Cowdenbeath on December 14 and went under the knife on Friday to repair the damage.
Now, with Beattie set for a lengthy absence, Dark Blues boss John Brown has intensified his efforts to bring new faces into the club.
The manager said: “Craig has done his cartilage and he’ll be out for between 10 to 12 weeks which is a blow. The damage was done at the tail end of the Cowdenbeath game and he had an operation on Friday.
“So we hope to do a bit of business in the January transfer window. There will be one or two trialists coming in over the next couple of weeks and we’ve got up until the end of January to do stuff.
“But we’d like to strengthen the pool by getting in one or two fresh faces just to give us that edge.
“There are guys out there who are hungry. If we can offer them an opportunity to try to help us get promotion, then there could be a carrot for them as well.
“If we did manage to get up, then it could be extended.”
Dundee will be without another first-team regular for the next two games with Iain Davidson suspended following his red card during the victory over Alloa on Saturday that propelled Dundee back to the top of the Championship table.
Brown had considered appealing the dismissal but has now decided not to, especially as he has a ready-made replacement waiting to take the centre-half’s place in the team.
The manager said: “We won’t be appealing Iain’s red card.
“There was a bit of a coming together and Davo said their guy’s elbow came towards him and he tried to push it away.
“But we’ve just got to deal with that. He’s out for two games but we’ve got Kyle Benedictus coming back.”
Brown also revealed that striker Peter MacDonald, who netted the winner against the Wasps, had played at Alloa despite being under the weather with a bug.
He said: “Peaso wasn’t in today. He had sickness and diarrohea on the Friday night and was carrying a virus for the whole of Saturday which he didn’t tell us about.
“He has had a good season for us so far. He’s maybe not been as productive for us in the past weeks prior to the Alloa game, but he returned to scoring ways on Saturday which we’re delighted about.
“Peaso has bags of experience so he’ll be invaluable for us for the rest of the season.”
With Beattie absent against Alloa, Brown handed Martin Boyle a first league start and the youngster repaid his manager’s faith with a sparkling performance.
Now, the Dens boss is looking for more of the same from the former Montrose striker.
Brown added: “I thought Martin Boyle did well for us on Saturday. It was a difficult place to go to for his first start but he got in behind them well and laid on the goal for Peaso.
“He’s got pace to burn and if we can get the right sort of service to him, then he could definitely hurt teams.”