Phil Buckingham on twitter:- Been to see Steve Bruce 1) McShane won't feature at Doncaster, also doubts about A.Bruce, Koren and Amos. 2) All quiet on the transfer front four days left to strengthen but Bruce seems very relaxed. 3) One or two irons in the fire but that's all it is at the moment. Although only four days left to strengthen this must only apply to the transfer window closing at 23:00 on Friday. There is still the loan transfer window, though would like to see some permanent signings.
So long as they're free agents when the window shuts. (ie we couldn't release McShane next week and then someone sign him before January)
Pretty certain will only be loans now all dependent on Premier league teams doing their things first.
I obviously meant those free agents that have been released already eg Heskey etc. I was talking about signing one or two not releasing anyone.
If you're still getting info, do you know much about what Bruce is able to spend? After the Proschwitz signing (allegedly £2.6m of course) we haven't paid a fee for anyone or even been linked with anyone particularly high profile really, so I'm beginning to wonder what our spending position is.
It was put on record several times that the Allams would look at each potential signing individually without an actual budget. In reality I think we all realise that's bollocks - if 4 or 5 top players came along at around £1.5m-£2m each there's no way in hell they'd allow Bruce to snap them all up. Personally I'd hazard a guess at another £2m (if the right deal came along) considering Proschwitz is the only player we've actually handed over a fee for.
I'm wondering if, since we've only signed Proschwitz for a fee and according to BCC he only cost us about £1m, are we really spending that much money? What if Prossy's signing was just, as some have suggested, a gesture to prove Barmby wrong without spending as much as it would look like we've spent, and that's why we haven't signed many other players of note. I mean, we obviously have weaknesses in the team, we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought we were perfect. Any manager wants new players to resolve weaknesses, so why is Bruce only looking at a couple of loans? Doesn't make sense to me. I could well be wrong, maybe there are a couple we don't know about who are high-profile proven players.
