In the Championship – Busy in Sheffield

This weekend he was the feature of a documentary on television and was seen telling the Sheffield United board that his side lacked quality up front. Four of those forwards have been told they can go. They are former Burnley loan man Paul Shaw, Danny Cadamarteri, Luke Beckett and Andy Liddel. Three of them haven’t even been with them for a year.

Also told they are surplus to requirements are Nick Montgomery, Paul Thirlwell and Rob Kozluk as Warnock, now under real pressure from the fans, clears the decks for what must he his last chance to get the Blades back up.

There is one replacement already in place, he’s paid Watford £500,000 for Danny Webber but he’s had an offer for Webber’s former team mate Heidar Helguson turned down. He went higher than Sunderland’s £1 million offer but Watford want more for a player with a year left on his contract.

Whether they will be able to afford to up the offer remains to be seen, they are spending money on improving the away stand at the Lane. It’s nothing for us to get excited about though, they are just replacing the wooden seats with red plastic ones and putting a bit of red cladding on.

There’s no such messing about at Hillsborough where Paul Sturrock has told Wednesday fans that it will be a season of consolidation next time round following their dramatic play off win.

With one striker gone and another wanting to go, it is hardly good news for Adrian Boothroyd at Watford. He’s tried to bring in Sam Parkin from Swindon but has had two offers turned down by the Wiltshire club and the only newcomer so far is seventeen year old defender Ben Gill from Arsenal.

Parkin is very much in demand and the Swindon board might well be forced to cash in with him reluctant to sign a new deal. He has one year left and Crewe have also made an offer. That’s been turned down but Dario G says he is not giving up on it and will fight Watford to get his man.

Kenny Lunt - could well be on the way to Leeds

Dario claims that there has been no interest as yet in Kenny Lunt although the player himself is preparing to move to Leeds, that one should be resolved soon. Crewe have also put season tickets on sale and what a fair way to do it, no matter where you sit you get the same number of free games, just as it used to be at Burnley. All season ticket holders will get seven free games at the Alexandra Stadium next season.

Bob Dowie has been busy at Crystal Palace in the last week, yes Bob Dowie and not Iain. The better known of the two brothers is just the manager but Bob has the responsibility of signing players and has brought three new signings into Selhurst Park in the last week and spent quite a bit of brass.

Jobi McAnuff has moved in from cash strapped Cardiff and he’s been followed by Millwall centre half Darren Ward and Jon Macken from Manchester City (formerly KKMC).

Cardiff fans must wonder what will happen next and the likely one is a move away for Danny Gabbidon. They are in good hands though, come on let’s face it you wouldn’t want anyone better running your club than their chairman Sam Hammam and his deputy Peter Ridsdale.

Apparently the money for McAnuff will be used to re-energise the squad (that sounds interesting) and they are still looking to sign Juan Ugarte from Wrexham before they turn up at the Interlink to take on Accrington Stanley in pre-season.

There’s been much talk again recently of allowing Celtic and Rangers into English football. Whilst against it personally we already have two Scottish clubs in the Championship in Leicester and Plymouth.

They’ve been making signings and guess what, they are all from north of the border. Celtic duo Momo Sylla and Rab Douglas have signed for Leicester whilst Bojan Djordjic has moved from Glasgow rivals Rangers to Plymouth.

Leicester boss Craig Levein has hailed the signing of Sylla because of his versatility. “We’ll need that,” said Levein, “We’ll have a squad of just twenty next season.” That’s a problem at least one Championship manager would like to have.

Antti Niemi - unlikely to stay with Southampton

Harry Redknapp could be one manager who does have problems. Firstly he’s been in charge at Southampton for long enough now for chairman Rupert Lowe to be thinking of a change, he doesn’t like managers to hang around too long.

If he does stay though he could have a fight on to keep hold of internationals Antti Niemi and Peter Crouch. Niemi has been linked with West Brom but they have denied it but he could well be a target for his old boss Gordon Strachan who is now at Celtic.

Crouch meanwhile, fresh from his England debut, looks to be on Rafa Benitez’ list of potential targets. He’s hardly a direct replacement for Milan Baros, but even if he doesn’t find himself at Anfield he is unlikely to be a Saint come August.

Southampton could be set to strengthen (and I use the word strengthen very loosely indeed) their squad with signing of Dennis Wise. It looks to be between them and QPR for the former Millwall manager.

Wise is a QPR fan, it almost seems to be a prerequisite to play for them these days (along with the statutory blue hair), and manager Ian Holloway wants him. Holloway has made his first summer signing with the capture of Chesterfield defender Ian Evatt.

Leeds haven’t made a signing this week – now that’s a rare event. They have extended the stay of Sam Ellis though and he’s agreed another deal as assistant manager.

It’s not a happy time at some clubs, just ask the fans of clubs such as Ipswich, Millwall or Stoke. Let’s take a look at Ipswich first. They’ve sold Darren Bent to Charlton and agreed a fee that will see goalkeeper Kelvin Davis move to Sunderland.

Tommy Miller is interesting Celtic whilst Shefki Kuqi could sign for Blackburn, and then there’s Jim Magilton who might not sign a new deal.

It’s all a worry for Long Ball Joe but the harsh reality is that they will not have the parachute payment next year. They came down with Sunderland and West Ham two years ago and have just seen the other two go back up to avoid the mess.

Ipswich won’t be as strong next season and things aren’t too good at Stoke where players keep leaving (quite often for Turf Moor) because of the inability of the board to offer them new deals quickly enough.

Kevin Muscat - not highly thought of by the Sheffield United players and management

The Stoke fans can’t understand why their players are moving to Burnley. They should listen to what those players say very closely, then they might even understand why Steve Cotterill chose to move on.

They do look favourites to get Peter Sweeney from Millwall but what about the London club. The only good news there is that Kevin Muscat, highlighted as a sly shit house by the Sheffield United players, as gone but with both Paul Ifill and Darren Ward having left things couldn’t get much worse.

They have now, Millwall have been charged and found guilty by a Football Association Commission of failing to prevent spectators from throwing missiles at or onto the pitch and also failing to ensure its spectators refrained from racist/abusive behaviour.

This comes from the Carling Cup tie against Liverpool and not having been there it is impossible for me to comment. But I somehow cannot help but cast my mind back to those two games against them in February of last year when Mo Camara was subjected to racist abuse.

Millwall are still without a manager and it looks as though Brentford boss Martin Allen and Gary Johnson of Yeovil have both turned it down. Lennie Lawrence, who recently lost his job at Cardiff, could now be the favourite.

Norwich could lose England goalkeeper Robert Green. He’s wanted by Fulham to replace Edwin Van der Sar who is Manchester United bound. If I were Norwich I’d take the money, they’ll be able to get a lot more than he’s worth.

West Ham are planning for life in the Premiership and are keen on Derby’s Polish striker Grzegorz Rasiak. Derby claim to have heard nothing, last heard they were still trying to persuade Wayne Thomas to sign for them.

Wolves have turned down two offers from Sunderland for Kenny Miller who remains on the transfer list at his own request. It should only be a matter of time before Miller is on his way out of Molineux.

Reading are favourites to sign Cork City striker Kevin Doyle and they are also keen to take his team mate Shane Long. Stoke also want Doyle but it looks all but certain that he’ll be at the Madejski next season for a fee of around £80,000.

Gary McSheffrey - signed a new contract with Coventry

It’s been a positive week at Coventry with Micky Adams agreeing new deals with both Dele Adebola and Gary McSheffrey. The latter had a number of offers to consider from other Championship clubs but Adams has persuaded him to stay with the Sky Blues. Maybe they won’t loan him out to Luton this time.

Coventry also want Noel Whelan back. The 30 year-old forward was with Aberdeen last season and is believed to be keen on the move.

Did I say positive? That is apart from their new Ricoh Stadium which won’t be ready for the new season. They are trying to persuade the league to allow them to play their first three games away from home.

The Football League should tell them to get stuffed and find somewhere else to play their home games during that period, it is what Bournemouth did a few years ago when their ground wasn’t ready.

Brighton have had some good news this week, mainly through the efforts of supporter Aaron Berry. He won the Coca-Cola competition and has won a quarter of a million for Brighton to spend on a new player.

That comes on top of the news that they have been allowed to install a further 2,000 seats at the Withdean, Chairman Dick Knight said, “It eases the pressure on us a wee bit but it is still totally inadequate for the sort of capacity we need and it also means the longest running public inquiry in football history still needs to be resolved.

“We’ve spent over £3 million on the Withdean yet it is still totally inadequate as any Championship club that’s been there will know this season.”

We all wish Brighton well in their efforts to get permission for the new stadium at Falmer.

Finally this week we look back at the homecoming for Preston at Deepdale last Tuesday evening.

The club were stressing that only 18,000 could be admitted to the ground because of the unreserved seating. They managed though, only 3,000 turned up to see the players. The players turned up too, something they hadn’t done at the Millennium Stadium the day before.