Cod Almighty | Diary

Transfer times

24 January 2019

Basque Diary writes: Uh-oh, one week to go! Until the door of the transfer window slams shut, as someone in a yellow tie might say. Yellow being the official colour of the two transfer windows, you see. So, how is our transfer window looking so far? Well, we've brought in two Swedes (exotic), we've brought in a player from a second division club (exciting) and we've made a loan signing permanent following his good form for the club (excellent).

Four players have been fairly cautiously added. It seems Ludwig Öhman and Seb Ring have been in Jolley's mind for some time, Luke Hendrie has impressed, and Joe Grayson comes with second-flight pedigree.

Andy Fox and Ben Pringle have departed – but all in all, so far so good, it seems. Could there be one or two more? Your guess is as good as mine. Jolley keeps his cards very close to his chest but I think we'd all like to see a striker come in to relieve some of the goalscoring pressure from Wes Thomas.

Would we be happy with our business if the window ended today? I would. We haven't seen a huge overhaul of the squad. The three permanent signings clearly have a bigger picture in mind and you'd like to think Joe Grayson comes with that bit of class we expect from division two players.

Our two departures appear to have been forced upon the club rather than being Jolley's choice, which is disappointing but it can't be helped at our level. Besides, you can't begrudge two people wanting to be closer to home.

The main gripe I can deduce from this is that we've changed our formation. But then I remembered lots of teams do this. Sometimes every week. Then I remembered we actually have a man with a grand plan in charge. Unlike before, when we were plagued by short-termism.

Then I remembered it's February next week and we can put a difficult month behind us because I remembered we've got Michael Jolley in charge, and in Jolley we trust.