Transfer plans complicated further

With an increasing delay in seeing any more transfer activity, the prospect of some exciting news has been further complicated by the unwelcome return of Marcus Bent and the incompetent Amdy Faye. Ben Thatcher has also spoken out after being offered a lower deal this year than last, following our failure to secure promotion.

Amdy Faye must rate as one of the worst buys we have ever made and the money (another £2m signing) we paid for the less-than-average player we got is an indictment on the judgement of Iain Dowie and probably the worst of a bad bunch of rash signings. I'd like to be able to glibly say we'll loan him out but his currency is probably so low I can't see anyone who'd take him being prepared to pay his wages. He's more likley to hang around like a bad smell.

Marcus Bent is not in that category but he'll hardly be relishing a return to the Valley having long since thought he had moved on to better things with Premier League (still) Wigan. My lowly view of Steve Bruce has increased by a percentage point with his decision not to sign Marcus. I really don't believe he's top flight material and his level is probably Championship. He's just turned 30 and doesn't offer us any improvement on what we've got. The difference here is that I think Pards will be able to off-load him, albeit on another loan.

Ben Thatcher is now actively looking for another club after being encouraged to take a pay cut, something that was always on the cards bearing in mind he's 33 this year and likely third choice behind Youga and Basey for the left-back berth. It's hard to see anyone coming in for Thatcher as we would probably want a small fee and his wages would present a possible stumbling block. A loan move is probably the best we can hope to engineer.

In the meantime our squad and wage bill has increased again when the plan must be to slim it down. It's hard to see how Pardew will be allowed to progress too far with his recruitment plans until some more players are managed out and we know the wage bill is controllable.