ZAT Knight has urged Owen Coyle to consider speaking again with Nigel Reo-Coker as he searches for a midfield enforcer.

Reo-Coker quit the Reebok after 12 months following the club’s relegation to the Championship but has yet to find a new club.

Coyle has yet to find a replacement, as he is currently haggling with Liverpool over the sale of Jay Spearing, but Knight believes his former team-mate could be tempted into a return should the deal not come off.

“I’ve been in the manager’s ear a bit to try and get Nigel back,” he said.

“I speak to Nigel every day, but it’s a decision for him and the manager – I don’t know if the manager wants him, and I don’t know if he wants to come back.

“I’ve said to Nigel that there’s still nine or 10 months left of the season, and even if he could just get a contract for that length of time, he would be fantastic for us.

“But that’s just me thinking and talking – it’s the manager, the money people and the agents who do that kind of thing. It’s out of our hands.”

Knight reckons a holding midfielder should be top of the shopping list this week as the transfer window draws to a close.

“It would be nice to have that kind of player – not necessarily starting, but to have that choice,” he said. “When you are winning 2-1, maybe it would be better to shut up shop.

“Darren Pratley, Mark Davies and Keith Andrews are all good, attacking-type midfielders so maybe we do need someone who’s happy to sit and give the ball to those lads.

“I’m not the manager at the end of the day, but hopefully we can get one or two more players in to strengthen the squad.”

Friday night’s 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest perhaps highlighted the need for extra defensive steel, and while Knight accepts his own culpability in the build-up to the second goal, he claims the blame should not always be laid at the feet of the back four.

“I always say there’s not just four defenders, we do it as a team,” he said.

“When we haven’t got the ball, that's when everyone is classed as a defender. When we have got it, we’re classed as attackers. But there's no point making excuses – we took our eye off the ball for the second goal and the midfielder got a run on us. We’re frustrated about it.

“This league is about concentration and the way you approach the game.

“When you go against a Premier League team you know it will be tough because every player is quality, but in this league the work -rate is completely different.

“In the Premier League you can get beaten by a great free kick, but there’s nothing that special here for me, it’s purely about matching work-rate. If we do that, the quality we’ve got in the squad can beat anyone.”

Wanderers move on to action in the Capital One Cup tomorrow night at Crawley, where Knight thinks some of the fringe players can make a case for their own inclusion against Hull City on Saturday.

“It’s going to be difficult and it will give the manager an opportunity to pick one or two players who have been on the fringes of things,” he said.

“Whoever gets the shirt has to deal with the game properly.”