The Express and Star is saying that Walsall have lost out in the race to sign Merson’s number one striker target.

It was fairly common knowledge that Lee Peacock wanted a move to be closer to his wife’s home on the South Coast, which gave us a slight advantage over the only other known competitors for his signature, Chesterfield.

Unfortunately, the Express and Star are saying that he considered Swindon Town to be even more convenient and will be signing for them.

This will be a blow for Merson, despite the aquisition of Paul Devlin, as he does need a big striker to compliment his squad and he also made the startling admission to the paper that he has no “Plan B”.

Meanwhile, another possible player who could fit the bill, Plymouth’s Scott Taylor, has signed for Franchise. Perhaps McCleod is on his way.

One of the world’s worst kept secrets was finally confirmed this morning with the announcement of the signing of former Blue Nose, Paul Devlin, but only until the end of this season. It appears that Devlin wants to keep his options open in the summer, having said last week that he felt he could still do a job in the Championship.

Devlin, now 33, has been plying his trade in recent years with Watford, but the former Scottish International winger (10 caps) has had a quite varied career.

He started out at Stafford Rangers before he was bought by Notts County for £40,000 in February 1992. From there, he moved to Birmingham City for a quarter of a million in 1996 and scored a creditable 34 times in 89 appearances, playing as an emergency striker.

He eventually went to Sheffield United, for whom he made around 150 appearances, but also had loan spells at Notts County and Birmingham before eventually moving back to St. Andrews in 2002.

He joined Watford in September 2003 and has played in 76 League games for The Hornets, scoring just 6 goals and has made 23 appearances this season, scoring twice.

He has a career total 579 games and 104 goals, but has been mostly used as a winger and certainly isn’t the big target man. We still await news of Lee Peacock.

Back to the all important FA Cup run tonight and the Barnsley replay. With it becoming obvious that Merson is not going to receive any of the proceeds from the sale of Bennett and Fryatt, it is, as he said, the cash earned from this run which is financing his team changes. Loan signings are all well and good, but we need to be building as well.

Having said all of that, changes have to be made from Saturday. Out will go Murphy, as Sunderland are still not willing to let him get cup tied, Smith, who wasn’t signed in time for the first game and, therefore, can’t play in the replay and the cup tied Constable. The line up, therefore, with only Merson and Wrack injured, should look something like:

Oakes, Pead, Gerrard, Roper, Fox, Wright, Osborn, Leary, Demontagnac or James, Timm, Atieno or James.

Barnsley manager Andy Ritchie summed up their position on the Tyke’s official site:-

“We will obviously have Paul Reid (defender) back after suspension but Paul Heckingbottom (Sheffield Wednesday loan defender) is cup tied. Dale Tonge (midfield) will go for an exploratory operation later this afternoon to get to the bottom of his knee injury and Nicky Wroe (midfield) has trained but is still struggling with swelling around his knee and could need another scan.
Bobby Hassell (defender) has missed training this morning but is fit to play at Walsall. Antony Kay (midfield) is on the mend and should be ok for the weekend.
I will have to make my mind up about whether to start Daniel Nardiello at Walsall and that is something I will think about tonight. Paul Hayes will start up front”.

Predictions? Barnsley have been on a poor run of form lately and have won only 1 in 7 games, which puts a different slant on what was still a good draw at their place. (Mind you, we’ve only won one of the last six!). As was proved in the League game on Saturday, all of Walsall’s troubles at the moment stem from their inability to score goals, but, if they can find a scorer or two from somewhere tonight, then this should be a relatively comfortable win, leaving a short trip to either Tamworth or Joke City in the next round.