PAOLO Di Canio has made strengthening his attacking options his priority in the summer and has already identified two players he would like to bring to Swindon.

Promotion-chasing teams often boast at least one forward who occupies the top end of the goalscoring charts, but Di Canio has overseen Town’s rise to the top of League Two without having such a player.

The Robins pursued proven goalscorers like Cody McDonald and Clayton Donaldson last summer, but neither were keen to play in League Two.

Consequently, Di Canio has experimented with a number of options in attack this season before finally finding the kind of striker he has been looking for in Paul Benson, who joined from Charlton in January.

Benson has been a revelation since his arrival and has scored nine goals, but he is doubtful for today’s game against Bristol Rovers due to a minor neck injury.

And while Di Canio is happy with the players at his disposal at the moment, he believes two more natural finishers will be necessary in the summer if Town are to challenge at the top of League One - should they go on to achieve promotion as expected this season.

He told the Advertiser: “It is a priority in the summer, it is something that I wanted last summer and also in January, but it was not possible.

“It was not the board’s fault but we have seen what has just happened to Benson – which is not a big problem - imagine if it happened three weeks ago.

“Benson confirmed what I thought at the beginning of my time as a manager, that teams need a player that has that habit to score.

“Against Cheltenham, even when the team was not playing very well, he was in the right position in the box to score.

“We didn’t play well but at the end there was a natural goalscorer in the box who could make the difference. Now we miss that.

“But we can’t think about this now and we work with the players we have because they are more than good enough.

“It was they who took us to the top of the league and they who reached the final. They beat Wigan, Huddersfield and Bristol City, so they are all the best players.”

Di Canio also revealed that, prior to signing Benson, Town were close to bringing in a 25-year-old League One striker who has since gone on to score regularly for his team.

“Before Benson there was a striker, but since we approached him he started scoring many goals in League One, but that meant that we were good at reading the players,” he added.

“We worked so hard to find this kind of player but we could not bring in another natural goalscorer.

“This was not the board’s fault but there was not the right level available, or the right free player and no club was willing to give a goalscorer out on loan.”