Cod Almighty | Diary

Remember Ciaran Toner?

7 January 2020

The transfer window always slams shut. FIFA's media handbook demands it, but the handbook is silent on how it opens. We are going to have to create our own journalese here. So welcome to three weeks of hefty search engine usage in Cod Almighty towers as we try to mug up an opinion on the latest academy product or journeyman pro to speed up the highway of dreams, or the M180 as the AA call it. Ladies and gentlemen: the transfer window has flaunted open.

The first name in the frame is Anthony Glennon, a left back and the Burnley under-23 captain. The 20-year-old Glennon's formative years were spent in the Liverpool youth set-up and it shows: he looks like a cross between Steve Gerrard and the fifth Beatle. Is he any good? We have until the end of the season to find out.

It is entirely up to you whether you speculate this might be a deal that has been sometime in the offing given ex-manager Michael Jolley's links with Burnley. Or alternatively that it suggests the links obviously weren't that good as it has taken Ian Holloway to shake him loose from Lancashire. As one of Russell Slade's early acts was to sign Reece Hall-Johnson and immediately lend him to his predecessor - Marcus Bignot - at Chester, I suspect these inter-club relationships are both less and more straightforward than we imagine.

The halo effect around Holloway is dazzling. Even Domestic Diary is quite happy to attribute to him the fact the club has for once broken a story just before rather than just after my deadline. He goes on a radio show to offer third-choice goalkeeper Ollie Battersby on loan? Just got to love the way he does things, at least unless we start losing.

There is football this afternoon at Blundell Park with the visit of Rotherham United for a Central League match. Both sides are managed by ex-Townites: our own Ben Davies, and Ciaran Toner. So if Rotherham take a while to settle, show some definite promise then fade, you will know why.

Sorry to rush. Enjoy your lunch.