Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 31 December 2009

31 December 2009

Your Guest Diarist can report that Grimsby Town's senior squad size has dipped alarmingly as the club have announced they have ended sixth choice striker Ben Wright's loan nearly a month early, and that Southampton have demanded the return of fellow loanee Oliver Lancashire because they might need him to play against Luton in the FA Cup on Saturday. With less than thirty players at his disposal now, manager Woods has told the superb new official web site to append a sentence at the end of their bulletin telling fans to expect further incomings very soon. He has also told the Telegraph that the squad is 'fitter and faster' now that he and Casper have had a few weeks cracking the whip. Do you agree, gentle reader?

Meanwhile Dave Moore has done one of his injury reports. With so many players to look after he is a busy man still. This is what he told those rich enough or bothered enough to subscribe to that Mariner player: Hudson is over his injury and back in training. Will he take our central midfield by the scruff of the neck and shake it? Or at least provide some genuine competition for places: I hope so. Hegggaarty has been kicked back in to full training by the firm-but-fair Mr Moore - still squealing about the pain but 'much improved'. Likewise Mr Heywood who still claims his knee is dodgy but who is being made to train harder. Robbie Stockdale will be back in full training next week all being well to provide Town with the possibility of having a genuine right back again. Dave Moore also reported pleasing news about young Drew Rhodes - he is recovering well from a nasty cruciate thingy and Moore predicts he will be turning out for the reserves early next year. Adrian Forbes is the only player not on the brink of getting back in to training then - his injury can't be traced by X ray but is very hurty. And when he says it hurts it definitely does in my view. The only guy Dale forgot to ask about was Bradley Wood(s). Shame because us lot at CA Towers really took to him earlier in the season and now it's like he was someone we just dreamed about.

To be honest I wasn't sure enough about Lancashire to badly want him to stay. He was just another centre half to choose from. It is a great shame that Heywood has not played through the pain because even on the bench it would have meant one less wage going out of the building. As for new players, well only if they are experienced, completely match fit and noticeably better than what we have. We have not-a-lot at the minute. But an awful lot of not-a-lot don't we? Ruthless pruning relies on other clubs taking on our clippings though so dumping half a dozen or so won't be too easy.

We start the second half of our season on Saturday. If there's owt said about the Bury match tomorrow morning I'll do a diary. If not then join me in some serious finger-crossing that Town fluke a home win. One thing is sure: if we get the same number of points from the next twenty three games as the first we are highly likely to get relegated out of the Football League. But just set your worry meter to seriously - we are not at blind panic status. Yet. See yer