ACCRINGTON Stanley will concentrate their efforts on signing ‘two or three’ strikers this summer – and Danny Carlton is understood to be one of their main targets.

Stanley scored just 42 league goals during the 2008/09 campaign – the lowest in League Two – and have now had to put key striker Paul Mullin on the transfer list because they can no longer afford his wages.

The Reds are considering bringing loan forwards Craig Lindfield and Michael Symes back to the club next season and are also believed to be interested in Carlton, who was a loan target in January but chose instead to sign a temporary deal with Darlington.

The 25-year-old former Morecambe forward was recently released at the end of his contract with Carlisle and Darlington’s financial troubles, together with the departure of manager Dave Penney, may scupper his chances of moving there permanently.

Stanley are also surveying a number of further attacking targets, with assistant manager Jimmy Bell saying: “We’re looking at two or three but they’re still with clubs at the moment so I can’t really say who they are.

“We need goals. If you look at the teams who went up they had four quality strikers, which is something we lacked.

“After 60 or 70 minutes they take their two strikers off and put two more on, but sometimes we didn’t even have one.

“In the second half of the season we had Paul Mullin and Craig Lindfield and at the start we had Paul, Terry Gornell and Jamie Clarke.

“But it’s a massive area for us that we need to move in the market for.

“It’s difficult because of the budget we’ve got, but it’s not impossible.

“There are people out there - young lads who have been released or people at Conference level or even League Two.

“We’re looking at getting two or three strikers on board.

“We should be able to keep everyone we want apart from maybe Proccy (Andy Procter) and one other (Chris King).

“If we can bring in two or three good signings I think the future can be very good for the club next year.”

Stanley are still in the process of being taken over, with general manager Dave O’Neill set to buy the majority shareholding of current chairman Eric Whalley.

A completion of the deal has been ‘a couple of weeks away’ for almost two months, but chief executive Rob Heys is hopeful that the less stressful summer period will allow time for negotiations to conclude.

“Eric and Dave are both at the club every day and there’s no animosity,” said Heys.

“It has been a bit frustrating that it has dragged on but everyone wants what’s best for the club.

“Things have been quite busy with the seats that needed to be installed and player contracts, but hopefully now most of that’s out of the way we should be able to sit down and get things sorted.

“It should be a couple of weeks!”