"He's done really well" - Town boss McGrath would like to extend loan deals

Houghton is on a month’s loan from Blackburn Rovers and has started Town’s last three games, plugging the gap at right-back left by Max Bardell’s hamstring injury.

"He's done really well, we'd definitely look at extending it,” McGrath said.

"Credit to Blackburn for trusting us with his development, and I thought he was good again on Saturday."

Allen is in his third month on loan from Derby County and has scored once in nine league appearances for Town.

"Yeah, I'd love to keep Cruz as well,” said McGrath.

"He adds quality, I think you saw that for the 20 minutes he came on on Saturday, he did really well, albeit in a deeper-lying role, which is something he can do."

McGrath said Halifax tried to sign 21-year-old midfielder Archie Lang recently, who joined Fylde from Bamber Bridge, but is still open to adding to his squad.

"I'm generally happy with it but I would like to add maybe one or two to it,” he said.

"We have got our eye on a couple, a couple of irons in the fire.

"We lost out on Archie Lang a couple of weeks ago, he went to Fylde, we were in the running for Archie.

"With the nature of football and us having a settled squad, there are one or two players who've been knocking on my door saying 'I want to go and play games'.

"It's just timing, getting the right ones in and allowing the lads out for the right reasons."

McGrath said Bardell is due to have surgery soon on his hamstring injury and that winger AJ Warburton is another six weeks away from recovery after being involved in a car accident.