WITH players about to depart and a favourable-looking run of fixtures coming up, Michael Clegg believes the time is right to strengthen his Warrington Rylands squad.

As such, he has moved to bring in two attacking players in the shape of striker Djavan Pedro on loan from Salford City and versatile forward Joe Adams from Atherton Collieries.

Both will be available to make their debuts on Saturday when Blues welcome struggling Basford United to Gorsey Lane.

Nineteen-year-old frontman Pedro has turned out once for the Salford first team this season and has plenty of experience in the Northern Premier League via loan spells with Stalybridge Celtic, Radcliffe, Marine, City of Liverpool and Trafford.

Adams has been a regular for Colls since joining in September, scoring three times in his nine appearances having previously turned out for Bury, Southport and Irish side Dundalk.

Their arrivals will help to offset the imminent departure of Scott Bakkor, who has secured work and a football club in Australia while teammate Joe Piggott is set to join him Down Under in the new year.

“We knew those two were going, so we thought we’d get these two into the squad as quickly as possible and integrate them,” Rylands boss Clegg said.

“Joe can play as a 7, a 10 or an 11 and DJ is more someone you can play through the middle as well as wide.

“We wanted to boost our forward line because defensively, we’ve been absolutely solid. I just felt we needed freshening up going forward to look to give more goals.

“Some games have been closer than they should have been as we should have been away from teams – games like Bamber Bridge, Lancaster and Guiseley.

“It’s our first couple of signings in a while but with Scott and Joe about to move on, we felt the time was right to make a move.

“We feel like we’ve squeezed everything we can out of this bunch and they need a bit of a hand.”

Saturday sees second-placed Blues welcome a Basford side who are yet to win away from home this season, but their last game on the road saw them take a point from promotion contenders Macclesfield last week.

It marks the start of a run of games Clegg is anxious to see his side take advantage of, with their next four matches coming against teams currently in the Northern Premier League Premier Division’s bottom five.

A trip to table-topping Radcliffe follows on December 16 before current bottom side Atherton Collieries visit Gorsey Lane in the final game before Christmas.

However, Clegg is well aware that his side have dropped points against sides further down the table already and wants to see a change of approach to these fixtures.

“If you look at our games, we’ve dropped points against teams in the lower part of the table so for us, the focus is going to be on what we can do better against Basford,” he said.

“I think in these types of games, we’ve gone for the throat really early and we’ve killed ourselves. It’s got to be more of a patient approach from us.

“With having a bit of competition in the squad up front now, I’m hoping to see our forward play go to a different level.

“This will be tough as these teams are scrapping for their lives but for us, it’s a little bit “now or never.”

“If we want to be taken seriously, we need to be taking some serious points between now and Christmas.

“This is the optimum time for us to have a push and be in a good position going into the new year, which is why we’ve strengthened.

“At the same time, if we don’t go and get a load of points in the next six games, we could be thinking our chance has gone.”

Clegg will have to do without key defensive duo James Butler (broken nose) and Sam Egerton (calf) for at least a couple more weeks but the club are not believed to be pursuing reinforcements in that area.