SCOTT Parker admits Cherries are no closer to adding to their squad, believing there will be "some late movements" in the transfer window.

Cherries are currently stretched to the limit, with eight senior players missing last Friday's Championship opener due to a combination of injury, illness and suspension.

While many are edging closer to a return, Parker's options are still set to be limited when he takes his side to Nottingham Forest tomorrow.

Of the matchday 18 against the Baggies, 11 were academy graduates with only four members of the squad aged over 23.

Asked if Cherries were any closer to adding anybody to the squad, with less than three weeks to go until the window slams shut, Parker told the Daily Echo: "Not really, no. Not at the moment.

"We’re trying and we’re around certain things and trying to do certain things. But it’s proving difficult. Like everything is.

"The loan market, the clubs that are going to loan players are not going to loan at the moment, there’s still a couple of weeks left. They’re going to keep them in house.

"Internationals with the Euros, their squads have come back late so of course they’re going to want full squads. So in terms of that, I can see there probably being some late movements on that.

"And then like anything you’re trying to sign players, you often find they’re the best players of the teams you want to sign and they don’t want to let them go.

"You’ve got the competition of other clubs maybe wanting them as well, so there’s a lot of factors here which are challenges. But we’re doing all we can to try and strengthen."

Since relegation from the Premier League in 2020, the only transfer fee paid out by Cherries was a minimal one to Preston North End to sign Ben Pearson, who had just six months remaining on his Deepdale contract.

The other six arrivals in that time have either been free transfers (Jack Wilshere and Emiliano Marcondes) or loan deals (Rodrigo Riquelme, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Shane Long and Leif Davis).

Discussing the perception that clubs coming down from the Premier League should have money to spend being not that straightforward, having also overseen that transition when Fulham dropped out of the top flight under his stewardship in 2019, Parker said: "No it’s not and even more so now. I think you’re going to see everyone’s hurting, every football club.

"You take probably the top sides out of the Premier League, where obviously the money speaks for itself in that division, there isn’t a lot of business going on.

"I think that’s due to the fact the last 18 months has been pretty painful. Clubs have had no income, there’s been no fans, there’s been absolutely no income and yet what has been a mainstay is the expenditure has kept going out the door.

"So of course in that case we need to be clever in our business, how we go about what we do and we will do. I have no doubt we will.

"Of course it’s down to me, my staff in getting the best out of what we’ve got and getting a group of players here which are on the same page and which we can improve, which we can get better and have a good season."