CONOR Hourihane admits the lack of wingers in his Barnsley squad is ‘alarming and concerning’ and has called for an ‘aggressive’ recruitment drive.

The January transfer window is halfway through, with deadline day in 17 days on Monday, February 2.

The Reds are 17th in League One, two points above the relegation zone and ten off the top six – two and five games in hand on every other team.

So far, Barnsley have brought in free agent centre-back Eoghan O’Connell and loan goalkeeper Owen Goodman, with Murphy Cooper being sent back to parent club QPR.

They are now thought to be focusing on attackers but they are not expected to make another signing this week.

In the wide areas, they have star man Reyes Cleary and youth product Fabio Jalo, who Hourihane says may be loaned out after injury, as well as some central midfielders who have filled in on the right. They are thought to be in negotiations for Middlesbrough’s 19-year-old winger Charlie Lennon who has been on loan this season at Darlington in the National League North.

Hourihane told the Chronicle: “We need to be really aggressive with signings at the top end of the pitch.

“To ask Reyes to play every single minute and to have nobody on the right hand side if Fabio was to leave is pretty alarming and concerning so it’s something we need to address pretty quickly.”

Jalo, 20, returned from a long-term injury in December. Hourihane said: “We have had six weeks wondering how Fabio is going to be. His injury has taken a lot out of him. I wanted to have a look at him, he’s trained with us all the time and played for the under 21s. Now I recognise he’s not ready for League One football just yet.

“Probably a loan somewhere is going to be key to get him somewhat back to the Fabio I saw before the end of last season. That will be important for Fabio moving forwards.”

Hourihane has also said he wants a striker with pace to add to his options.

Davis Keillor-Dunn has 15 goals but the only other striker is David McGoldrick, 38, who has not netted in 15 league games since August.

Barnsley are hoping to keep hold of Keillor-Dunn and Cleary, with chairman Neerav Parekh saying on Tuesday that the Reds had turned down four bids for Cleary.

Meanwhile, Barnsley have been moving on players who are out of favour with Hourihane in order to bulk up their squad again with signings he believes will make an impact in a second half of the season that will be played in less than 100 days.

Hourihane said: “With the situation at the club in terms of budget, we needed to be smart in our recruitment to let people go and let people come in. The ones who have gone are the right ones.

“Now we need to focus on players coming in. The 20 players in the squad on Monday were everything we had, with Luca (Connell) suspended, so it’s really important to get bodies in.”

Barnsley have now returned three of their four loan players signed in the summer – Caylan Vickers, Jake Rooney and Cooper. Hourihane said: “Someone like Caylan I really liked in the summer and I thought he would be very good for the club, it just didn’t go that way.

“Jake Rooney was a last-minute scenario on deadline day and it was ‘who would we get with the funds we had left?’

“In terms of Murphy, we’ve been heavily peppered by goals against and we needed to shake that area up. He’s been guilty of being involved in a team that’s lacked keeping the ball out of the net.

“They are all different reasons. We are wheeling and dealing and trying to free up money elsewhere.”

Vickers’ loan was officially cancelled at the end of last week. The Brighton man made a fine start to his Barnsley career on the right wing, starting 15 of the first 16 games, but was dropped in October and only started once more in the league. Hourihane said: “We played with a high right winger at the start of the season and Nathaniel Ogbeta was high and wide on the left, to give us width on both sides. With the development of Reyes we have switched that around, then Caylan found gametime limited. He wanted to play as a number ten but I thought he physically struggled because he’s not the biggest.

“I thought he was better on the wing but he had to slip behind Reyes and found his minutes hard done by.

“We feel, from a ‘freeing up finances’ point of view, it was best he went back.”

Hourihane told a fans’ forum this week that he needs new personnel in his defence in the future but added yesterday that he does not expect any more defenders to join this window. The Reds have kept the fewest clean sheets in the EFL so far this season with two.

Josh Earl broke a metatarsal bone in his foot in training on Friday so missed out on facing boyhood club Liverpool.

He is likely to be out until March, leaving the Reds with O’Connell, Marc Roberts, Jack Shepherd and Mael de Gevigney as their centre-back options.

Kelechi Nwakali and Kacper Łopata have not featured at all for the first team this season – with defender Lopata returning from a loan last week – and the Reds are looking to move them on.