HARRY Kewell is pleased the January transfer window has a different feel to when he arrived at Latics in August.

The Oldham head coach replaced Dino Maamria six weeks before the start of the League Two season with just eight players at his disposal.

That meant the squad was assembled in double-quick time to be ready for the delayed campaign kicking off in the middle of September.

Now, with Coventry City loanee Marcel Hilssner the first addition, January looks like being a more refined affair.

Kewell has said he sees the month as a topping up process, hoping to make a handful of signings to not only bolster competition but also add some depth with a frantic finish to the season possible if Latics are hit by Covid-19 postponements.

“Walking into the job and having eight players is strange but when I walked into my first job at Crawley and I had about 30 players,” he said.

“I’ve had that difference where you need to get players in whereas before I was looking at trying to get rid of players.

“It takes time and we’ve been able to assemble a squad.

“I think it’s a good squad, can we add additions to it? Of course you can, I think we can always improve.

“This squad is young enough to improve and we’re still getting to know each other. We’re getting over that barrier now which is fantastic and it does take time.

“In any kind of football, you can’t rush into things.

“We had to rush into to get a squad together but now we can just take it easy and pick and choose two or three additions to make the squad bigger and better.”

One issue Kewell has to manage is the fact that Hilssner’s arrival means he now has six loanees at his disposal with only five allowed in each match-day squad according to EFL rules.

Players could in theory see their deals cut short this month but as things stand the Latics boss wants his loanees to make sure they are not the one left out of the squad.

Forward Bobby Grant’s absence having been battling Covid-19 meant there was no dilemma for Kewell for the draw at Walsall on Saturday but it looks set to be on the agenda sooner rather than later.

He believes the reliance on loans is natural given the speed at which the squad was assembled and longer term, it is something he would like to be able to move away from.

“I understand we may make a loanee disappointed each game but, again, I go back to, that we’re still a young side, so we had to bring in a couple of loan players to bolster the ranks with experience,” Kewell said.

“We will look to have not as many loans in the future, but for the meantime, especially in January it’s usually the only logical option available to us.”