PHIL Parkinson is confident Charlton will have two keepers available for selection against Tranmere on Saturday.

Regular stopper Rob Elliot is expected to be out for at least a month after chipping a bone in his elbow while playing for the reserves on Tuesday, leaving young rookie Ross Worner as the only remaining keeper on the club’s books.

Parky has until Saturday lunchtime to solve the problem but added it isn’t as easy as people may think, despite the number of reserve keepers sitting on the bench across the country.

The Charlton boss said: “Ross has done well and certainly the Dagenham game was his best performance.

“We will see how it goes on Saturday and obviously we are going to get someone in on loan if we can because we can’t go into a game with only one senior keeper.

“We always said when we brought Ross in we would leave money aside if needed to bring in a keeper on loan.

“That is what we are trying to do but it isn’t always as easy as that.

“We’ve got until 12pm on Saturday, so the time scale isn’t a problem, it is just getting the right keeper to fit what we need.”

“There aren’t too many experienced keepers around who are available at the moment.

“We’ve got a few options and ideally we know what we would like but we may not be able to get that.

“I’ve just broke away from my search now to come and deal with the press conference.”

Parkinson added: “I’ve been at it all day yesterday and watched a keeper play last night who is a possibility, so we are working at it.

“There are a lot of keepers not playing at the moment but it is whether the clubs will let them out on loan.

“Some clubs have got three keepers and the one they want out of those three is the one they don’t want to let out.

“It is just a case of working out who is available, which we’ve done over the last 24 hours, and then trying to get the best one.

“There are one or two goalies who are out of contract who we could bring in but if we offer them a month’s contract and they sign that, then after that month it restricts them going to another club until January 1.

“I think that rule in itself is difficult because there are two senior keepers I could get but they will not come for that reason unless we give them an extended contract until January 1, which financially is difficult for us to do.”

This uncertainty also left Parkinson unable to definitively answer whether Worner would start at Tranmere.

He said: “It is difficult for me to say on that one because I was in this situation last year where sometimes you get a loan keeper and the only reason you can get him is because the club wants him to play.

“We need somebody in and there are a few options.

“Ideally we would like Ross to play on Saturday but there are four or five calls I will be making in a minute to determine which way that goes.”