Who's loaning who?

Well, late joiners today aside it looks like we'll be well short of the four Murray-predicted loanees. Martyn Waghorn should play tomorrow but it looks like the rumoured Ian Harte deal is off and target Darryl Powell has re-joined Derby. You can't blame Harte for not signing a month's deal. He's a former top class Premier League and International and at 31 he needs to be tempted with something more substantial than a month's trial loan. Financially secure, a month's loan looks like an insult and if that's the way you start out then you have to wonder how you'll be treated after that. We don't know the story with Powell but his name's been in the frame for weeks so you can only presume he didn't get an attractive enough offer either.

Personally I am not bothered as I don't believe too many loans at the same time are necessarily helpful and I'm not convinced Harte or Powell offer us any more than we've already got. Sometimes you've got to take your medicine to get better. I'd rather see us persevere and some of the younger players get more of a look-in. 

The bad news is that QPR have signed Heider Helguson and he will likely face us with Dexter Blackstock in midweek. I can see him scoring against us, espceially if he hasn't opened his account at the weekend.  

Elsewhere, Cardiff have tempted Premier League flop Wayne Routledge from Aston Villa and Palace have signed bad-boy Ishmael Demontagnac from Walsall. Possible one-time Charlton target Ivan Campo is being loaned out "to the right club" and that sounds like it could be us unless we've already failed to meet Ipswich's terms. 

The way things are going, I suspect our next move may depend largely on the outcome of tomorrow's game. Win, and we might be tempted to let things ride. Draw or lose and they might press a few more buttons in the hope of getting a reaction. Failure to win in the next week with home games against Sheffield United and Southampton with QPR away in between will surely be the last straw forPards. It may all come down to the Southampton game.