COLWYN Bay manager Craig Hogg is expecting to be busy in the January transfer window ahead of the new JD Cymru North campaign.

The Seagulls’ suffered some significant squad losses due to the Football Association of Wales focusing their attention on getting the JD Cymru Premier started and nothing else, but now Tier 2 has been granted ‘elite athlete’ status by Sport Wales, Hogg is looking to bring in some reinforcements to assist with their expected promotion bid.

He said: “I can see us being active when both the transfer window and loan periods open in January. It’s been well documented now that we lost a number of players before the last window closed due to our league inactivity.

“We are clearly very light in many positions and we currently only have a small number of players registered with the club.

“That’s a big problem for us in the short term, but it’s one we will work hard to find solutions for in January and we hope to find a way to do that and to try to improve on the good table finish we had last time out.”

Hogg is tipping the likes of Bangor City, Airbus UK Broughton and Gresford Athletic to be among the title challengers, with a new-look Prestatyn Town squad under former Bay star John Lawless another to keep an eye on.

The manager also demanded that promotion and relegation be included this season to compensate clubs for a substantial loss of income from playing behind closed doors.

“Our objective returning to pre-season back in July was to close the gap on the likes of Prestatyn who really set the standard under Neil Gibson,” added Hogg.

“A key factor that supersedes everything though will be the topic of promotion and a definitive answer to that is crucial in many ways.

“We know we will have to play behind closed doors and all clubs will suffer because of that, along with reduced sponsorship income as the current state of the economy isn’t good at all. A statement of intent from the powers that be on whether someone will actually go up this season is needed soon.

“That will help those at the sharp end who run clubs to know exactly where they stand, especially those clubs who really want to go up into the JD Cymru Premier.”