Meanwhile Jonas Troest, a nineteen-year-old defender from Denmark, is apparently on a week long trial. Described merely as "imposing", his brother is on the books at Aston Villa. It seems likely tomorrow's reserve game against Norwich will be called off due to a waterlogged pitch, especially with keeping things dandy for Saturday in mind, but if it should go ahead then maybe he'll get a run out to see what he's made of.
Finally, we're apparently in talks with Dinamo Zagreb attacking midfielder Niko Kranjcar. Despite being only twenty, he's already attracted interest from Kiev and Parma, captained his side and Croatia's U21s, and earnt comparisons with former Fratton favourite Robert Prosinecki. Originally for his skill on the ball, and now for the fact that he's a few stone overweight after being placed on the transfer list and put out in the cold at Zagreb. Not sure if he's a smoker though.
Kranjcar is the son of a former Yugoslavia player - and indeed, a former team-mate and close friend of Velimir Zajec. It all starts to fit together now doesn't it? Apparently we've tabled a bid of 1.5m Euros (you do the conversion maths) but we'll wait to see if anything more comes out of it than suspicions in the Eastern European press. I wouldn't be surprised if something does happen really, after all Velimir has a far reaching knowledge of football in that part of the world and apparently an extensive library of contacts. I don't care if we haven't heard of the players involved, as long as they're up to the task of taking the club forward. As Velimir has said himself - quality, not quantity. Except he probably said it in Serbo-Croat.