Pitt and Challinor on the list

Typical, I spent ages (well, a few minutes anyway) writing a piece yesterday about nothing happening, then while I'm doing it something happens, with Challinor and the Pittster being transfer listed.

"Whine grumble moan budget cuts moan whinge finding it hard to strengthen the squad whine whinge high earners grumble grumble grumble," said the Brabinator, neglecting to mention that the reason we're having to chop the budget now is because he spent so much last year.

I have mixed feeling about the potential departures. Challinor is obviously no great loss, having confirmed my pre-season fears that he is a dark-haired version of David Bridges with a series of anonymous performances. You can tolerate those kind of players if they score a few goals, but a record of two in 37 games is hardly earth-shattering. He seems to have done well everywhere else he's been, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get someone to take him off our hands, although I guess we'll have to write off the £15,000 we spunked on him last summer.

Courtney is a very different kettle of fish, and I'm surprised to see that, judging by the posts on the official messageboard, many people would be happy to see him go. The Pittster may be inconsistent, but you can certainly never accuse him of not working hard for the team, and while his form has been a bit patchy since Christmas, he is on the way back from a fairly serious injury to it would be a bit harsh to judge him on that alone. Most importantly, we will need to replace him with a better left-sided player, which could prove tricky as they don't exactly grown on trees. I hope our leader knows what he is doing.