There have been a few rumours around the message boards over the weekend, especially on the BBC 606 board, that Oldham Athletic have suddenly shown an interest in Merson’s number one target, Julian Joachim.

Oldham, with their new American backers, have made numerous signings for the up-coming season and seem to be linked with just about every striker going, including Luke Beckett, although they failed to reach an agreement on a fee for him.

The Joachim story, however, seems to have originated from their official site message board, where a poster said that their supposed interest in Scott Taylor was “just a smokescreen” for a bid for JJ. All of the rest of the talk appears to have originated from this.

At the moment, then, this just looks like message board talk, pure and simple, although Oldham certainly have the resources to make an offer for JJ, if they wanted to.