When Steve Bruce goes shopping for a striker in the January sales the Birmingham City manager will eschew the bargain baskets in favour of the Premier range according to the club's chairman David Gold.

Although, in the shape of Nicklas Bendtner, the Championship leaders already possess the best attacker in the division, Birmingham are looking to deepen their offensive options when business begins in four weeks' time.

Besides the mercurial teenager, who is on loan from Arsenal for the rest of the season, Bruce has just the relatively raw pair of Cameron Jerome and DJ Campbell to call on and has made public his desire to carry four front-line forwards.

Campbell and Jerome have scored only seven league goals between them so far (Bendtner is the top scorer with eight) and have struggled to find any consistency in the first half of the campaign.

And with Mikael Forssell out for the foreseeable future Bruce is conscious of the fact he does not want to repeat the mistake he made in 2005-06, when he played most of the Premiership programme short-handed up front.

That means the manager will ask the Birmingham board for the money to recruit from a position of strength and, although his wish is likely to be granted, Gold made it clear it will take a fairly impressive name to inspire him to take out his chequebook.

"Within a couple of weeks of the window opening we will sit down and see what is required. Right now it would not be that much," said Gold who watched with pride as his team dismantled Plymouth last Saturday.

"It is all very well saying we want a striker but if they are not available you can huff and puff all you want because there is no point bringing a journeyman to this football club.

"We will not bring in players unless they are capable of helping secure promotion and then playing in the Premiership because we don't want to have to make all those changes again. We have got to look for a Premiership-quality player to minimise the changes we have to make if and when we get there. They have to be able to perform at that level already."

Gold has been impressed with the approach Reading and Wigan Athletic have taken to adapting to life in the top flight, neither making wholesale changes when they won promotion.

"We have seen some clubs who have made a few signings and have done very well and others who have brought in a whole team and have struggled," he said.

"We are almost asking a Premiership player to come to us and bear with us for six months while we hopefully make it back up.

"At the moment we have probably got one of the best two squads in the division so that when it gets tough — as it will — and injuries and suspensions bite, we have the resources to cope with that."

But Bruce is adamant that squad is short by a striker. Although he could use David Dunn or Gary McSheffrey as an auxiliary attacker the former is often injured and the latter is worth more employed as a winger.

"I haven't had the conversation yet — how could I when things were going on five weeks ago — but I will speak with the powers that be in the next couple of weeks," Bruce said.

"I'm mindful of having only three forwards and the continuing injuries to Dunn and Forssell. That causes me a concern and I will be looking at that end of the pitch to give us another option.

"Jerome was sick last week and we only had Bendtner and DJ although McSheffrey can go through the middle as well."

Bruce, like Gold, is concerned that a player of the requisite quality could be difficult to find. Those who might have a chance of making the step up are few and far between. Crewe Alexandra striker Luke Varney is one option as is Preston North End's David Nugent.

The former is hugely inexperienced, the latter could be prohibitively expensive. Southend United's Freddy Eastwood could be another target but his price will have gone up following his Carling Cup heroics against Manchester United.

Bruce said: "The difficulty is are they available and are they the right ones? I won't just bring in anybody who will not improve us. I will be looking for someone who is going to improve us significantly, not a gamble."

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