Shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic

With the League One fixtures due out at 9am today and a host of relatively attractive pre-season games lined-up for once, you would expect some excitement and perhaps even optimism amongst the club's supporters.

Sadly, that is over-shadowed by the continuing colossal lack of ambition on the playing front. After a clear-out of all those we could move on contractually and hype from Peter Storrie and Methven's consortium that a "Top Six" budget had been agreed as well as a mechanism that would allow recruitment to continue whilst the takeover drags on, we have signed precisely no-one. 

They told us they had identified all their targets and that their plan was in place. On season ticket deadline day we were linked with Alfie May and an offer was supposedly made. There is now doubt about that, but if it happened the offer was obviously small enough for mighty Cheltenham Town to ignore it.

Logic tells you that Thomas Sandgard isn't going to spend a penny more than the budget for last year, which they told us at varying times last season was "Top 4" and "Top 6." Indeed, the last player we paid a fee for was Scott Fraser 18 months ago. If we buy anyone, you can be sure the squad numbers will be trimmed to pay for it. 

The notion that "all interested parties" had agreed a transfer budget is laughable. Indeed, Peter Storrie told the Fans Forum last week that he had no idea what the takeover consortium's transfer budget might be. Charlie Methven has been waffling about being desperate to get the deal done to maximise the transfer window but I will bet my hat that they will drag this out to delay coughing up to Sandgaard until the last minute, avoiding taking on too many months running costs before the season starts and that they will start the season with a smaller and cheaper squad than we ended it.

Let's face it, it's taken them six months to get £11m and Proof of Funds together and their consortium has grown and grown in order to do even do that. We are now hearing in great detail about the EFL's various processes, Proof of Funds, Owners & Directors Tests and Financial Tests. We now know sequencing and timelines as well as all the other clubs in the queue. I believe Methven's group are managing the timeline process to hopefully conclude nearer August and blame the EFL. I am waiting for the statement that says "we will do what we can with the limited opportunities left to us in this window and focus on continuing the rebuild in January."

We are being played I tell you.