Braintree Town’s pitch concerns may stay manager Danny Cowley’s hand in bringing in a fresh loan signing.

While the Iron find themselves on the road in the Vanarama National League – at Torquay United – on Saturday, the Avanti Stadium playing surface has continued to prove problematic, with last weekend’s home game against Boreham Wood postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.

It is another game to be fitted into the fixture list and with the water table around the ground still high and more wet weather potentially on the way, there could be further call-offs to come.

With that in mind and knowing that his players have had just one league outing in the last month, Cowley is reluctant to bring in fresh loan players to add depth to a squad that doesn’t necessarily need it at the moment.

The Iron boss has lost Jack Powell, who has gone back to Millwall after just three games in his month’s loan spell at Braintree, but is wary of parting with cash for another loanee who may not be required just yet and may choose to keep his funds for later in the campaign.

Cowley said: “Jack (Powell) has gone back to Millwall as he didn’t have enough games while he was with us.

“It’s a shame as he only had three games and I know we didn’t get to see the best of him, but they want him playing regularly.

“We have a few other options that we are looking at and we are working really hard, but because we’re not playing, we don’t want to sign anyone on loan if they aren’t going to play.

“We are trying to spend pennies wisely.”

Heading in the other direction in the loan market, though, is Braintree striker Jordan Cox, who is set for a second month-long loan spell away from the Avanti Stadium.

Cox has spent the last month with Cowley’s old club, Concord Rangers, but only made a limited number of appearances for the Vanarama National League South side and the Braintree boss is hoping to get him “firing” with another period on loan.

Cox will be heading to Ryman League premier division side Billericay Town for his latest loan period.

With the January transfer window now open, Braintree also know they may have to fend off interest from other clubs looking to take players on a permanent basis, but while one offer had come in early on, Cowley said there had been no movement in the opening days of the month.

He said: “There’s been nothing concrete, but we have had an offer come in for Simeon (Akinola) that was lower than one we’d already turned down for him.”