CHERRIES chairman Peter Phillips has told boss Sean O'Driscoll to prepare himself for "crisis management".

Phillips insists the club will pull out all the stops to help O'Driscoll strengthen his squad - but only in an emergency.

His comments come just days after O'Driscoll's already wafer-thin squad was further depleted following injuries to key defenders Neil Young and Shaun Maher.

The duo both missed Cherries' Division Two curtain-raiser at Port Vale on Saturday and will also be sidelined for tonight's Carling Cup first round clash at Watford.

Young is expected to return to training at the end of this week, although Maher looks set to be out for at least a month due to an ankle injury.

And the absence of both Maher and Young leaves O'Driscoll with just 18 first-team professionals on the books - including two goalkeepers and teenage midfielder Fawzi Saadi.

But despite the Cherries squad being thin on the ground, Phillips says he will only loosen the Dean Court purse strings for a crisis.

Phillips said: "Everybody knows money is extremely tight. We cannot afford to make mistakes and waste funds in any part of the business, and that includes the playing side.

"However, as we showed last season, we will find the money to make sure we support the team when it is necessary because that's what we are all here for.

"Despite all the serious financial problems we had last season, we managed to bring in players of the calibre of Neil Moss and Warren Cummings and we will do the same this season if we have to.

"Let's hope we can keep our first team fit because I think we've got an excellent squad of players and we can do very well.

"If we do hit the sort of crisis we hit last season, we will respond and the money will be made available to Sean, possibly with the help of Playershare.

"But it will have to be a matter of keeping our powder dry until we do have a crisis - unfortunately, it's going to have to be crisis management.

"Even though we would like to, we can't afford to splash out on three or four new players just in case things might go wrong. We have got to wait until things do go wrong before we put them right."

Phillips has also poured cold water over suggestions O'Driscoll's squad could be further weakened by the departure of Carl Fletcher following rumours both WBA and Ipswich were on the verge of tabling a £1m bid for the Cherries skipper.

In response to the speculation which appeared in the News of the World on Sunday, Phillips said: "I've had no approach - official or unofficial - from any club in respect of any player so this is just newspaper talk."