Neil Lennon is hopeful he can spend the coming weeks on his phone trying to secure loan signings for Bolton

Neil Lennon is hopeful he can spend the coming weeks on his phone trying to secure loan signings for Bolton if the Football League lifts the club's transfer embargo.

Wanderers hope to announce a consortium fronted by former striker Dean Holdsworth has completed its purchase of the club in the next few days as they look to put an end to their off-field struggles.

The Football League this week gave the Sports Shield group conditional approval to press on with a takeover that will see it inject an initial £7.5million, but it will continue to monitor a situation that has had the club up in front of a High Court judge on three occasions since January over unpaid tax.

Sports Shield's first task will be settling a debt approaching £3million with HM Revenue and Customs before the club turn their attention to lifting a Football League-imposed embargo that has prevented Lennon from signing players since late December.

"It looks like it will go ahead over the next couple of days, which is obviously great news," Lennon said of the takeover

"We need to get the embargo lifted. We are looking at players anyway just in case we get the green light."

Wanderers are anchored to the foot of the Sky Bet Championship and are 10 points from safety with 10 games remaining.

Lennon is desperate to bring in a striker before the loan window closes at the end of this month and sees it as paramount that they can get out of their embargo.

"It's very important," he added.

"You just hope it's not too late. Time is, again, of the essence. It's taken a long, long time for this to go through. It's been frustrating, I'm sure it's been frustrating for Dean as well but I think he's got there now.

"I don't know how much money I have but we're making phone calls anyway and trying to touch base with a few clubs just in case. It would be nice to get it ratified, get the embargo lifted and actually use my phone and talk to somebody."