TILBURY introduced their 54th player of the season when new recruit Usif Bangura started Saturday's encouraging 1-1 draw with Boreham Wood.

All but seven of those players have seen Southern League Division One East action at some point during a disappointing campaign that sees Tilbury rooted nine points adrift of safety at the foot of the table.

"Undoubtedly the lack of stability in the side has played a major contribution in the problems," said joint manager Neil Speight.

"However it is likley that we will be trying to recruit some more new faces in the next week as we have a lack of quality in depth in the squad.

"There are some great lads now, and team spirit is improving week by week, but it doesn't take a genius to see that we are short on proven talent and of players who are prepared to give their all in adversity."

Speight and fellow manager Garry Kimble have been scouring the south east in recent weeks to try and inject some fresh inspiration into the club.

Saturday's scorer Chima Eberendu made it two goals in three league starts and Bangura was impressive on his debut befoe running out of steam becasue of lack of match practice.

With another new striker Matthew Judge, on loan from Dagenham, due back after missing Saturday's game through injury, Tilbury are hopeful they will finally be able to score the goals to spearhead a revival.

Speight added: "We need a miracle really. Our secretary Mark Southgate got it just right recently when he said 'we need snookers,' but we will be trying for them and it we'll keep rolling out the old cliches about it not being over until the fat lady sings until it's mathematically impossible for us to survive.

"At least now we look like we might score goals and the defence is beginning to look solid for long periods in a match. However we've only kept one clean sheet this season so we've got plenty to work on there."