Ivan Katalinic's 'tache

It's just occurred to me that another Ward/Seaborne situation could be developing here. We're monitoring (at least) two forwards: Lisbie is interested (like Ward), but may turn out to be the back-up deal if we can't get Barnard (Seaborne).

Or, if Pards, wants to keep Paterson, then perhaps Paterson on loan til the end of the season plus cash.

If the Barnard deal doesn't go our way, then I'd have no problems with us signing Lisbie. Would add a bit of pace, if nothing else, and does cause teams problems at this level.

+1!

All this Ward talk is very interesting but, as he's not coming to us, anyone got any news on Barnard?

Interesting but I've no idea what he's trying to tell us. Hopefully, it translates as we're looking to sign him but can't say any more at the moment!

Nothing on this on the Southend message board I found (other than 1 poster saying us, Peterborough and Forest were interested). I know it's paper talk but I'm surprised that the Mirror would say we'd had a bid accepted if we hadn't. They could put we were interested but saying we'd had a bid accepted implies a deal is closer at hand.

I guess you didn't find the Taking Stock headline on the OS funny either?

Surely they wouldn't tease in this way, without there being some substance to us signing him, would they? Hopefully, there will be a story on the OS, at 2pm, tomorrow (entitled Stock Taken) which has nothing to do with a count of the merchandise in the Megastore!!!

We've had a bid of £200k accepted by Southend, according to the Mirror.

Just had a Saints news text (believe it's from Orange as my network supplier but it was set up so long ago that it could be from anyone!) that Donny have snubbed our bid and AP has admitted we won't be following up our interest. Is this true?!

I would imagine that, if Donny are aware of Hammond's injury, they'll be more rigid in sticking to the asking price...

For those who were there, how did they get on (particularly Fonte, seeing as we spent big to get him)?

For those that were there, how did he get on? I thought it an interesting call to bring him in, in a must win game, when he's not been close to a game for a while.

Also, the jokey tweets on Twitter about someone at Sky getting their wrists slapped for getting it "v. wrong" would appear a little distasteful, in retrospect, given how close Ward was to signing.

Obviously AP and NC have to make decisions based on the best interest of the club and, if as is suggested, Seaborne becoming available meant we no longer wanted Ward then so be it. That said, scrapping the deal at the point where half the paperwork was completed and the player due to meet his new teammates is incredibly harsh on Ward and, if it is to be indicative of the way we handle transfers, it could cause us problems in the future.

Still think we need a striker, if the plan is to utilise James as a midfielder. If Saga is out of the picture and Connolly is starting to pick up a few niggles, then it would only take an injury to Rickie to severely hamper us.

I wonder whether we're actually going to see James move to the wide right spot rather than centre mid. If Otsemobor is an attacking full back, it might be prudent to have a less offensive midfielder in front of him, in a Marsden-Bridge-esque way (although not obviously in terms of quality!).

Given that their fans don't seem to rate him & he's out of the side at the moment, I'm guessing this must be the player who's not having a good time at his current club?

"and from a different source is that a bid for Lee Barnard had been made not 100% on this one." Tac-tics mentioned this about Barnard yesterday. Anyone else heard anything? Would be a good signing if true, IMO.

Norwich have just signed Russell Martin, from Peterborough, who is also a right-back, so could be true.

On the Exeter website (link posted by someone earlier in this thread) they reckon the fee is £275k down up to a max of £475k. That said, other posters said he's actually off to Leicester for £100k. Seems their ITKers are as sound as ours...

Still nothing further on Twitter from Danns... Could he be busy in talks with us? Or is that putting 2 & 2 together and making 5? Also, if his Twitter is broken, how did he put a message on Twitter that his Twitter is broken?

The thought occurs that if, as SSN and the Exeter messageboards believe, we're close to signing Dan Seaborne (Dan S.), has the whole Neil Danns rumour been based around a bit of miscommunication?!!

Ah yes, from memory his dad has something to do with the medicals doesn't he?