Northampton Town have lost loan striker Saido Berahino, but boss Aidy Boothroyd has moved instantly to replace him with Brett Williams.
England youth international Berahino, signed by former Northampton boss Gary Johnson, has shown why he is so highly regarded during his loan spell at Sixfields from West Bromwich Albion, scoring six goals in 15 appearances.
He has now returned to the Hawthorns and is set to join a team in a higher division, but that has seen the Cobblers swoop for Williams and the boss is excited about the 24-year-old’s power, pace and presence up front.
“He has done very well for us, but I think he wants to go and play at a higher level, which is totally understandable,” said Boothroyd of Berahino.
“They are the flaws with having loan players that you might lose them at some point in time, but they do sometimes bring that little bit of extra that you might not have.
“I'm very happy with his contribution, but we draw a line under that, he moves on and I was able to secure Brett Williams from Reading on line.
“It's like for like, although Brett has got a bit more experience than Saido and he's also a lot more physically imposing and stronger.
“These things all happen for a reason, you can never put all of your eggs in one basket and what we've done over a period of seven or eight weeks is slowly but surely improve it.
"He's a good player, I like him and he's one of those guys that needs a canvas on which to paint, and we'll be that canvas for a period of time and we'll see how it works out."
Williams, who was plucked from combining playing for non-league Eastleigh and his day job as a taxi driver by Reading last January, had been on loan with Northampton’s fellow League Two side Rotherham United.
He goes straight into the squad for Saturday’s trip to fellow strugglers Dagenham & Redbridge and could make his debut along with defender Clarke Carlisle, who missed out last weekend when the Macclesfield Town game was postponed.
As for players leaving, Boothroyd is not expecting anyone to go anywhere yet and spoke of his desire to keep winger-cum-forward Jake Robinson after revealing he would have featured against Macclesfield.
He said: "Jake is back fit, he's in the fold, and I've had a number of enquiries about him but to be honest I don't see the point in getting rid of a player that scored 15 goals last year and has got a one in six ratio in his career.
“He is back in the fold and he'll be fighting for his place, whether that's in a wide role or playing up front with Bayo [Akinfenwa]. We'll just see where it all develops.
“We've got a lot of games in a short space of time and the last thing we need to do is be leaving ourselves bare in areas of the pitch.
“I've said all along that the squad needs to be reduced, but it needs to be taken down with quality and not average-ness. I think we're getting to a place now where we are getting quality.
“We will have enquiries, some will be allowed to move on because we need to do that, but others that are part of my plans will stay."
The postponement last weekend means that Northampton now have a busy period coming up with several re-arranged and midweek games, with Boothroyd is aiming for as many points as possible to move off the foot of the table.
He said: "We really wanted to play on Saturday and we wanted the game on to go out and get those three points.
“Clarke Carlisle and Luke Guttridge in particular were really disappointed because they want to get going and get us up the league.
“What it means now is that we've got a Saturday, Tuesday, Tuesday, Saturday run of fixtures and we can rack up some points on the board.
“We are away and we've got to make sure that we go into this game and get something out of it
“We've got 18 games to go, I'm getting somewhere near the team that I wanted and on the training pitch I'm fast-tracking all of those months that I've not had and getting them into a short space of time to make sure we add to the good work that has been done by the players before.
"I'm well aware of the situation, but we're not seven or eight points adrift.
“A win on Saturday and everything looks different, two wins and everything looks great, and three or four wins you never know where it is going to take you."
