Colchester United boss Mick Wadsworth will this week be pulling out all the stops to sign on-loan midfielder Warren Aspinall on a permanent basis.

And a Friday afternoon call from struggling Division Two rivals Macclesfield seeking to sign Mark Sale has put the giant striker's prospective £40,000-£50,000 transfer to Hartlepool on hold for another 24 hours.

Experienced former Everton, Aston Villa, Portsmouth, Carlisle and Brentford midfielder Aspinall - U's man-of-the-match in the 1-1 draw with Reading last Saturday - is set to play the final game of his one month loan period at Wycombe Wanderers this weekend.

Wadsworth said today: "Warren is a player of quality. He makes things happen and he opened up Reading with some great passes.

"I'd like to sign him permanently, but there's a lot to be discussed before that can happen."

Sale, meanwhile, will almost certainly sign for Macclesfield in the next 48 hours if they can match Hartlepool's offer to the U's and the player's personal terms.

The big Wembley winner hinted last week, when asked about the move to Hartlepool, that he would jump at the chance if a club nearer to his Midlands home made a bid for him.

Macclesfield is a mere 45 minutes up the road while the daily trip to Hartlepool would take at least another hour.

Wadsworth confirmed: "Macclesfield made an inquiry for Mark on Friday afternoon and now I am waiting to hear what the lad has to say."

Sale came within an ace of bowing out of Layer Road with an injury time winner against Reading, but their keeper Scott Howie somehow got his fingertips to it.

It was only one of many chances that went begging after Neil Gregory ended his six-month goal drought when shooting the U's ahead after only eight minutes. Reading skipper Phil Parkinson grabbed a point with a deflected equaliser nine minutes from fulltime.

"I was both satisfied and disappointed," said the U's boss. "Satisfied with our performance, but disappointed with the result.

"We carved out some great openings and created enough chances throughout the match to have won.

"I was very pleased for Neil Gregory, but if he had scored again straight after half-time Reading would have been dead and buried. I don't think they were good enough to have come back from two goals down.

"As it was their goal was a bit of good fortune. It took a wicked deflection off Paul Abrahams, but we scored a similar goal at Gillingham the week before so we can't grumble too much.

"Other than that Reading had a lot of posession but never got in behind us.

"Too much posession can be dangerous if you don't do anything with it and I thought my lads did extremely well considering the enforced changes we had to make. I thought we were incisive going forward and by and large defended excellently," he said.

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