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Our closest rivals have done some transfer business in the last week, and all credit to them as they tangled with the murky waters that are League One Leeds. They nipped in and completed the transfer of midfielder Kevin Nicholls. Is Nicholls happy to be at Deepdale? Who knows, but he's sure as hell happy to be away from Elland Road. Let's face it, he was even happy to go back to Luton just a few weeks ago.
One final piece of news from Preston, former assistant manager David Kelly is about to leave the club after a full year on garden leave. They refused to allow him to go to Derby for a year and have paid him for doing nothing because he wasn't wanted by Simpson. He's now heading for Derby with a year's worth of extra salary from Preston in his back pocket.
The busiest club in the transfer market last week were Colchester. They've made four signings, lost another with another set to go. The signings couldn't be more diverse, certainly with the strikers. In need of new blood following the departures of both Chris Iwelumo and Jamie Cureton they have signed Franchise's Clive Platt and are set to partner him with former England player, the 41-year-old Teddy Sheringham who has become player/coach.
Sheringham, a class act at his best, and being asked to play alongside Platt who they have incredibly paid £300,000 for. I'll reserve judgement but I'm very pleased we haven't signed him. They've also signed Leyton Orient's Luke Guttridge and Mark Yeates from Spurs in the last week.
When manager Phil Parkinson left for Hull last summer after a messy court case an agreement was reached that Hull would make no attempt to sign any Colchester players for a year. It didn't seem to matter once Parkinson was sacked at Hull but the Humberside club have still decided to shop at Layer Road.
Parkinson, now at Charlton, had nipped in to get Iwelumo, but the fake tanned Phil Brown signed Richard Garcia last week and now Wayne Brown is pleading with Colchester to let him make the same move to the KC Stadium.
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Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry both added three players to their squads last week, Wednesday completing a triple signing last Monday as their underwater training got underway. There was no surprise to see Lee Grant there, having been released by Derby it had looked odds on that he would go to Hillsborough. He was joined by Robert Burch from Spurs and Richard Hinds from Scunthorpe, Laws going back to his old club for the first time to sign a player.
Another new face at Hillsborough could be an old face. Steve Watson ended last season there on loan from West Brom and the former Newcastle defender is expected to complete a permanent move there this week.
John Halls has left Wednesday and gone back to Blackpool. He's one of two signings made by Simon Grayson last week and neither of them will have too much difficulty in locating the half a ground. Halls was joined by Michael Flynn, also a former Blackpool player and also previously sold by Blackpool to Gillingham.
Blackpool look set to lose Matty Blinkhorn to Morecambe but Grayson has hit out at the way the deal has been handled by Morecambe. Surely not another pub team run by Sammy McIlroy.
Iain Dowie has added three new players to the squad at Coventry and has gone back to former clubs to sign them. He seemed to cope with heading south again and arrived back with both Michael Hughes and Gary Borrowdale from Crystal Palace before reaching the south coast to compete the signing of striker Leon Best who had turned down a new offer from Southampton.
Two out then for the Legend at Palace, but he has made his first summer signing with the capture of Jeff Hughes from Lincoln. He's also lost another player to a midlands club with central defender Darren Ward completing a half million pound move to Wolves. Meanwhile the Legend has confirmed that Tom Soares will not be sold to Leicester.
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Leicester, now there's an interesting club. They are throwing money at it but it does seem that Milan Mandaric is having more than a little say in who comes in. They've added two more in the last week. Shaun Newton arrived from West Ham and winger Jonathan Hayes from Reading.
They are also keen to get Robbie Fowler and are believed to have offered him £22,000 per week. I think we would need to fill a whole forward line for that amount of money, and people suggested we tried to sign him.
Cardiff are supposedly battling with Leicester for him, and here's another club where the manager has little to say or do when it comes to anything. Ridsdale seems to have taken total control of everything there. They have signed goalkeeper Michael Oakes from Wolves in the last week and, according to Ridsdale, have turned down an offer (not from Watford) for a former Newcastle striker.
Charlton have been busy again this week and have brought in two players from Premiership clubs who had turned down new offers from their clubs. Portsmouth striker Svetoslav Todorov was the first of the two and he was quickly followed by Manchester City goalkeeper Nicky Weaver who will replace Scott Carson at the Valley.
Two signings also for Barnsley, Sheffield United and Scunthorpe. Barnsley have added two defenders to their squad, Dominik Werling from Turkish club Sakaryaspor and full back Rob Kozluk from Sheffield United. Meanwhile the Blades have lost Phil Jagielka to Everton but the bundle of fun who has taken over at Bramall Lane got Gary Naysmith from Everton for a million and then bought Scunthorpe striker Billy Sharp for around £2 million.
It was a good deal for Sheffield United who already had a sell on clause, so the more they spent on him the more they got back. Scunthorpe have replaced Sharp with Stoke's Martin Paterson and they've also signed Jonathan Forte from Sheffield United as part of the Sharp deal.
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Craig Beattie has left Celtic for West Brom in a £1.25 million deal, but expect a lot more transfer activity at the Hawthorns with players coming in and certainly players going out. The next one in could well be defender Gregory Arnolin from Maritimo.
Elsewhere, Ipswich have upped their offer for Francis Jeffers but incredibly Blackburn are still holding out for a million. Celtic striker Kjartan Finnbogason is on trial at Bristol City but Plymouth have been rocked with the news that Kevin Gallen has turned them down and gone and signed for Franchise.
Former Stoke goalkeeper Ed de Goey has joined QPR's coaching staff but at Stoke it is nearly this and nearly that. They have nearly got John Eustace to sign a new deal, they have nearly convinced Trevor Sinclair, Malcolm Christie and Andy Griffin to sign for them and they've nearly got a game for the fans to watch whilst they are in Austria. Maybe they will have it all sorted by the time of next week's In the Championship.