Clearly the defence still needs some work, and a forward who can be relied upon to get 15 goals a season to take the pressure of Shearer would be nice, but Sir Bobby doesn’t sound too optimistic about getting his way.
"In an ideal world, I would like a couple of players - and the chairman is aware of that," he said.
"I think every club could do with two new players. Arsenal and Manchester United would buy two players tomorrow if they could.
“Chelsea could buy anybody at any time, I think, particularly if they say there's £40million for Henry or £50million for Van Nistelrooy.
"In the summer, for us to do better we perhaps needed two players. But we didn't move, and things became a bit scary because of the start we had to the season.
“We have kind of recovered since then. But if it was financially possible we could do with two more players."
A nicely timed public hint to the chairman may be a clever ploy from Sir Bobby, but after the failure to make the group stages of the Champions League it remains to be seen whether or not Freddy Shepherd thinks we can afford any big-money signings.