Steve Cotterill is looking to new loan signing Danny Higginbotham to arrest Nottingham Forest's worrying slide following a 2-0 defeat to Burnley on Tuesday night.
Jay Rodriguez, once under Cotterill's tutelage at Turf Moor, dealt the damage to an impotent Forest side, stunning the home crowd with an easy header following Kieran Trippier's cross after just three minutes.
Forest rallied, Wolves loanee Adlene Guedioura pulling the strings in midfield to allow Ishmael Miller and young debutant Jamaal Lascelles to threaten the visiting goal, but to no avail.
Cotterill might have breathed a sigh of relief as Rodriguez blasted over the crossbar in the 56th minute as Garath McCleary conceded a penalty for a foul on Ben Mee.
But there was to be no mercy as the young hitman sealed victory with an identical header 10 minutes later, Trippier once more with the assist.
Yet following the match, which saw Forest slump to a sixth straight defeat in the npower Championship, it emerged that Cotterill had secured the loan signings of Stoke defender Higginbotham and Manchester United starlet Scott Wootton until the end of the season.
"Difficult times at the moment, very difficult times," mused the Reds boss.
"It's very difficult when you have to have a makeshift back four, and to get off to that sort of start makes it an uphill battle.
"Jay Rodriguez is a young boy who I know very, very well, and he is very, very good in the box.
"Now we've got a couple of loan signings we can bring in.
"One's a good young player and Danny Higginbotham will come in with good experience and good leadership skills. So the team's going to change around again.
"With Adlene Guedioura and Greg Cunningham coming in too that doesn't leave us any more loans.
"We needed this two months ago but we didn't have the money. That's what's made it a prolonged and painful time.
"We haven't had our noses in front for a long time and that is a big thing in this league."
Eddie Howe had nothing but praise for his free-scoring frontman Rodriguez, who brought his tally to 16 in all competitions this season, firing the Clarets to an eighth win in their last 11 league outings in the process.
The Burnley boss said: "It was a great start but I think we started both halves really well. We scored a great first goal after a great cross from 'Tripps'.
"The second goal was really similar and there were two great finishes from Rodriguez.
"His all-round performance I thought was excellent and he just continues to get better and better.
With the transfer window closing this evening, Howe had mixed emotions over travelling to Nottingham with time still remaining for potential incoming bids for Rodriguez.
He added: "Hopefully everyone's going to be short on time; if the window was open longer we'd certainly be getting bids.
"Hopefully we can keep him and he can enjoy the rest of the season with us.
"It's been weird with everyone preparing for the game with the window in the background and I'll be pleased when its shut. I don't see the point of having it open when games are playing.
"Defensively we look really strong and solid and I can't speak highly enough of the players' mentality.
"It's never an easy game here and tonight was no different.
"We didn't let the penalty faze us, then we got the second goal and it was game over."
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