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Tuesday, I suspect, is going to be a busy day as we wait to see whether we’ve signed any of Robbie Brady from Norwich, Andrew Robertson from Hull and Aston Villa’s Ashley Westwood while we’ll also be preparing for our Premier League game against Leicester City.

I’m not so sure who came up with this daft idea of arranging one of the Premier League’s three midweek fixtures at the same time as the January transfer window closes but as Jim White goes into his final countdown on Sky, fourteen of the twenty clubs will be in action including ourselves and that home game against Leicester.

Ahead of the window opening, chairman Mike Garlick said the plan was to be stronger at the end of it than we were when it opened. Right now you would think there’s been no change. Yes, Joey Barton returned to us early in the month but just over a week ago we lost Dean Marney to a serious injury in the defeat at Arsenal.

By then, the rumour mill had been underway for some time. Some of the names thrown in were beyond even fantasy football while others seemed slightly more realistic. Obviously there were the obvious names such as Brighton’s Dale Stephens, a player we chased during the summer, and even Polish winger Kamil Grosicki, but was anyone prepared to have a bet on that one being resurrected?

I saw mention of Hull left-back Andrew Robertson (pictured) early in the window but the name that seemed to be the most prominent was Norwich’s Republic of Ireland international Robbie Brady. With a little help from a couple of people on social media we were able to track any progress on that one almost as excitedly as a Grosicki flight.

Then, last week, out of the blue came news that we’d had a £10 million offer for Robert Snodgrass accepted by Hull. That caused a stir but it didn’t last too long. Within minutes it almost seemed we had competition from both Middlesbrough and West Ham with the news soon filtering through that the only claret and blue Snodgrass had eyes for were the bubble blowing variety in the athletics stadium in London.

Sean Dyche didn’t seem confident on that one even before the player arrived at West Ham to sign with a blast from Hull manager Marco Silva still ringing in his ear. That was one crossed off but Brady remained in the reckoning. We’d reportedly offered a fee that would again break our transfer record only for Crystal Palace to gazump us with a smaller offer, or did they?

I’m still not sure whether they did or they didn’t but then again it is Sam Allardyce there now so it is almost difficult to believe too much. There were suggestions that it was done only to frighten Sunderland into action and sell them Patrick van Aanholt. If it was, it worked, he’s made a £14 million move from Sunderland to Palace today while Sunderland continued their conversion from Black Cats to Blue Cats with the signing of yet two more from Everton, this time Darron Gibson and Bryan Oviedo.

Will the Stadium of Light soon look like Goodison Park? Are the next targets going to be the likes of David Weir, Alan Stubbs and Duncan Ferguson? Will the Everton old boys pull off another miraculous escape on Wearside?

It’s all good fun in the North East. Newcastle seem to think that to win promotion you need to keep buying players so you have more than the rest of the league put together and in the smog land of Middlesbrough poor Aitor Karanka looks ready to lose the plot again. It appears he’s not happy with the club for failing to bring in the players he wants, he’s not happy with the fans and blamed them for a recent home defeat, and he’s not bothered whether Jordan Rhodes and Gaston Ramirez go or stay.

Back to us though. Will anything happen tomorrow? Will Norwich get Ajax defender Mitchell Dijks in on loan to enable Brady to join his big mate Jeff Hendrick at Turf Moor? Will Hull secure Inter Milan full back Andrea Ranocchia in a loan deal to allow Scotsman Andrew Robertson to move to North East Lancashire and will Sean Dyche do some business with his mate Steve Bruce and get Ashley Westwood to Turf Moor?

A lot of questions with answers expected, one way or another, by 11 p.m. tomorrow night by which time we will have played Leicester at home.

I doubt there will be much time to continue discussions on the forthcoming cup tie against Lincoln.

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