Freddy Eastwood was yesterday revealed as the man who Chris Coleman was seeking in order to help the Sky Blues stave off the threat of relegation and, unfortunately for both Welshmen, the international striker will not be going to the Ricoh Arena.

Eastwood's club, Wolverhampton Wanderers - where he has failed to secure a first-team place under manager Mick McCarthy - pulled out of the deal after ten days of negotiations.

It is believed that an initial loan deal was going to be made permanent in the summer for a fee in the region of £2million. On-loan Sky Blues striker Kevin Kyle, presently at Wolves, was not part of the talks.

It is another bitter pill for Coleman to swallow in the transfer market. He has expressed frustration and dismay at the attitude of some players in the Premier League who, he says, have shown a reluctance to play first-team football in favour of picking up inflated wages while content to play reserve-team football.

There is nothing to suggest that Eastwood is one of those players but, that aside, Coleman has still been far from successful in attracting anyone through the door at Coventry. Only Kasper Schmeichel and Portsmouth full-back Richard Duffy, who has been on loan at the Sky Blues three times and has yet to impress a large section of the fans, are the only two to have joined the battle to stay in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Of the Eastwood setback, Coleman said: "What can we do? For the last 24 hours we have been chasing our tails. This is not good news."

While Coleman has failed to significantly change the look of his first team, matters behind the scenes are taking a new shape. The manager last week told eight players they could leave the club and he yesterday revealed that he would withdraw the club from the reserve team league in order to focus on the first team with a smaller squad next season.

He said: "We want to train with a group of 20 players, maximum. You always get suspensions and injuries but we don't want to train with more than that because it spoils the sessions. Sometimes you can struggle to get a reserve team together because you want to protect your first team and then you are forced to play kids too early. We do not need the reserve team next year and we want to concentrate solely on the first team.

"Maybe, if we are successful next season and are at the other end of the league or even get into the Premier League, we might change things. But that's the way we want to work it. It is unlucky and bad timing because if we were having a reserve team next season I might have given some of the young boys a new contract, but we do not want to waste their time."