Yesterday’s transfer deadline day provided little in the way of respite for Latics fans.  No announcements, no rumours, no random sightings not even a sniff of a deal.  The only news all day was the early story that (surprise, surprise) Papa Diop had decided to stay in London and fight for his place at Fulham.

The lack of media activity could mean that Matt McCann and the boys had taken the day off, but without even the release of a pre-prepared “We tried to bring people in but at the end of the day we’ll just have to knuckle down with what we’ve got” type statement at midnight, I’m (optimistically?) believing that Jewell and his team were busy trying to do business right until the last minute.

As the window approached, Jewell indicated that he’d like to bring in 4 or 5 players to improve the squad, his business over January has seen 5 players come in but with four players leaving the club questions will be asked about whether he’s done enough to strengthen the squad in what has been their weakest area for the last four season, its size.  You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that, yes, the squad is bigger but not by much.

I suppose that the bigger boost in terms of squad strength is the players we have returning from injury.  Taylor and Valencia have reappeared and made some difference, whilst Henri Camara looks set to return to the 16 for this Saturday’s game.  The overall squad may only have increased by one, but we’ve now got four more fit players than we’ve had throughout our poor run of form.

Any way, what’s done is done and at the end of the day we’ll just have to knuckle down with what we’ve got.  Now is not the time for bold statements but the Reading game has given us enough to suggest that there’s enough in the squad to turn the season around.  There certainly seems more of a buzz about the team than in previous weeks and if we can build on the Madjeski performance, then who knows what will happen?

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