Harrogate Town intent on adding 'better quality' defenders following Colchester United loss

The Sulphurites boss had previously said that he was only planning on making “one or two” signings during the January transfer window and has already added full-back Toby Sims to his squad.

But he was left angry by the “soft” and “flaky” nature of his team’s defending against the visiting U’s at the weekend, and says he has now “seen enough of all the goals going in”.

Town have been scoring plenty of late, but are looking worryingly leaky at the other end. Indeed, the six goals they’ve conceded in their two previous outings has taken their tally for the season to 39 and leaves them with the joint-second-worst defensive record in League Two.

Saturday saw them struggle to cope with the physicality of Colchester striker John Akinde and also unable to effectively combat a series of hopeful, route-one punts towards their penalty area.

As a result, Weaver insists that he will have to look to recruit defenders of “better quality”.

He told BBC Radio York: "We will work hard to bring in people who can defend.

"We’ll really strive and work hard to get better quality in, [players] who don’t buckle at the first sight of a long ball.

“We need to be better, we need to be better equipped to handle these games of attrition because we have got some really good forwards and attacking midfielders who can skip past people and create, which is the hardest part of the game.

"I said at half-time, we’ve got it in us to go and score two, three, four goals, without a doubt. I don’t doubt the lads in an attacking sense, but it would be nice to come away from a game where we’ve got even a drab 1-0 where actually, the back-line have been under a bit of pressure and they haven’t buckled for once.

"I’ve seen enough of all the goals going."

Weaver went on to say that Town’s defensive inadequacies are all the more frustrating given that he feels that his team is more than competitive in all other areas of the pitch.

"Against opponents, between the boxes, there’s nothing in it,” he added.

“We played Leyton Orient and shouldn’t have lost that game against top of the league.

"We’ve played some really top teams and we’ve competed really well but where it matters in the boxes, we’re not going up expecting to score from the back and we are not defending our back post or the middle of the six-yard box.”

Last week saw Town complete their first bit of business of the month when free agent Sims signed a deal until the end of the season, with Weaver stating that the 25-year-old will bring “aggression” and a “real will to win” to Harrogate’s back-line.

But the former Pittsburgh Riverhounds defender was not involved against Colchester as international clearance for him to play has still not been received.

"We are chasing it down because he does display passion,” Weaver replied when asked if there was any news regarding when Sims will be available to make his debut.