Spot who's missing

Tomorrow's open training session at the Valley promises to provide a real insight into the camaraderie within the squad and the relationship the players have with Pards. Sure, there will be a little bit for the cameras but it will still be fascinating and I will await reports with eager anticipation.

With Madjid Bougherra on his way to West Brom for what looks like £2.3m (acceptable in the current market I guess), the game to play tomorrow will be "who's missing?" With the departure of Bouggie, the club have raked in £4m and are a million short of the £5m they had targetted although I suspect this was a net figure of expenditure, so we can expect someone else to be leaving and will probably need another couple of million if Pards is to get anything to spend. It's also looking like the parachute payment this year has already been taken as part of the £15m the Board "found" towards the £20m budget gap to get us on an even keel. On the basis that we don't have too many obvious £1+m saleable players left, it doesn't look like Pards is going to be doing any serious shopping. So, team spirit and togetherness will be more important than ever this year, which is why tomorrow is intriguing.

Zheng Zhi looks to be everyone's favourite to be next, although we would all cheer to see Faye on his bike. Assuming we get Cranie or someone similar on loan to cover for Bougherra, I can't see Jon Fortune going or we will simply compound our central defensive headache. I don't see any of the rest of the defence offering enough to anyone else to warrant the fee we would need. In midfield, Jerome Thomas is the obvious candidate but it looks like everyone else knows what we have known for a long time, that he's a sulky flash-in-the-pan. Holland's too old to attract a fee and the rest (ZZ apart) are too young.

Up front, we could probably get £250,000 for Dickson or £750,000 for Gray. Varney is probably the jewel in the crown but I hope the club wouldn't be foolish enough to let him go for the sort of fee we are likely to get for him at the moment. Todorov is the only other one I can see attracting a fee but, again, I can't see it being significant bearing in mind his time out and risk of another, possibly career-ending repeat of the injury in the short-term. So, keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for the missing player or the one or two who aren't actively taking part!