WANDERERS have been scouring Norway and Spain for players this week as Neil Lennon stepped up his recruitment drive.

Although the Whites boss admits he does not know what his budget will be this summer with question marks still hanging heavy over potential investment in the club, he has maintained a watching brief on some of the talent he wants to tempt to the Macron Stadium if the cash becomes available.

Lennon watched midfielder Mohamed Elyounoussi score twice as Molde beat Stromsgodset 3-1 on Wednesday night and has also been on a scouting trip to Spain in the last few days.

Wanderers have contract offers out with Adam Bogdan, Darren Pratley, Emile Heskey, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Matt Mills but the manager will not know exactly how much he has to invest until he gets a definitive answer on the quintet.

“I honestly don’t know what my budget will be,” he told The Bolton News. “That will always be dictated to by the contracts you hand out, who accepts them, and whether there will be any extra wages available.

“Some of those players might not be signing on the money they were on before – but the offer is there.

“We have been working very hard identifying players. I was in Norway last night and we’ve looked in Spain and in various grounds around England – people who may be out of contract and available on a Bosman.

“We clearly need to bring players in because I’ve been very frustrated with how many I have lost to injury this season. It is something we need to look at.”

Despite several sources claiming there has been contact between the club and a Northern Irish consortium about a possible takeover in the last few weeks, there remains no tangible evidence that Lennon will benefit from any added investment next season.

Assistant manager Johan Mjallby, who stepped in for Lennon in yesterday’s press conference as he returned from his scouting trip, admits it is a challenge to find bargains who can take the club forward.

“I think it is a harder job than we had at Celtic – but you still had to be clever in that department,” he told The Bolton News. “Celtic is a massive club and you had the lure of Europe but the SPL is maybe not viewed as that attractive without Rangers or any competition.

“I think we are more or less going into the same markets when you compare it Celtic and Bolton.”