With every day that goes by, another shrewd bit of transfer business passes us by and I get closer to wondering what the transfer team at Palace (DF principally) is up to currently.

Fabio Carvalho would have been a sensible loan signing for us, but he is now off to Hull on loan. There are still other free agents out there that could do a job for us on the wing to plug gaps (I vowed never to cheer Jesse Lingard after his Wembley winner but he could really do a job for us currently). Ross Barkley in the summer would have been a really astute free signing. There are other possible loans out there that we could be snapping up but aren't (Djed Spence at full back is one possibility but there are large numbers of big club fringe players we should be looking at on loan). As a Palace fan I really don't mind us not spending money we don't have - that is understood for those of us who remember keenly the pain of going into administration and the fear of going out of business on several occasions. What I can't understand is not actually covering the glaring gaps in our squad with anyone at all.

At the end of the summer transfer window I really felt we had got it wrong, with recruitment with various deals not getting over the line in key areas, but hoped the transfers/recruitment team knew this, and would be working overtime to try and ensure that come January, they put this right. 11 days into January and it looks to me like the transfers/recruitment team don't seem to have been in any hurry to fill gaps at full back/on the wing/up front. That really concerns me. It isn't exciting football by any stretch, but Roy and his team have done a very respectable job to get the squad that we have up to 21 points at this stage. He must really must be tearing his hair out with the recruitment DF and co are giving him.

We all know DF and co have done very well finding Olise, Eze, Guehi, Anderson and Lerma, and they should rightly be applauded for that. Where, though, is the pragmatism in our current situation? I really feel currently we will either go down or be perilously close to going down this season, and the fact that the transfers/recruitment team aren't trying to remedy that currently does tend to make me feel they are asleep at the wheel.

Throwing circa £20m at Franca and c£20m on a reserve goalkeeper (who was replaced at Man Utd by a £4m keeper) when we had let two good goalkeepers in Butland and Guaita go for free smacks of really alarming decision making.

I really, really hope we do some shrewd, pragmatic business in the coming weeks. It doesn't require huge sums of money. It just requires someone paying attention and deciding that a few useful players in areas we currently struggle would really help us stay up.

Yes, and I've just ramped that up a notch and lifted my self imposed ban of going to the Amex

Old, Ungifted and White

I'd be very uphappy if we signed him given the size of his gut, looked like he enjoyed himself over Christmas!

La la la your mum

Match at 3PM followed by the purchase of the Evening Standard Classified for the match reports.
Up north the 'Pink' and the 'Green'un'.

My word,this takes me back !

Apropos peanut vendors, I recall Mrs Minchella on the Holmesdale Terrace.
Perhaps that chant which ended "... peanuts for sixpence" was the result of her bellowing out in order to attract custom.

And Tosun, Perri & Rakip.

We're s***e in this market.