Near misses

The more you read about Ravel Morrison, the more you have to conclude we dodged a bullet by missing out on him. When Man Utd baulked at his contract demands, the midfielder chose West Ham over us, promptly upset Fat Sam, was farmed out on loan to Birmingham and has now had a stern talking-to about his attitude from an exasperated Lee Clark.

Meanwhile, readers with long memories may vaguely recall us once being linked with Anderlecht's Jonathan Legear. The Belgian midfielder, now with Russian outfit Terek Grozny, recently managed the impressive feat of mistaking an accelerator for a brake pedal and crashed his Porsche into a petrol station. A shame he didn't sign for us, in some ways - that would have been another different motoring offence to add to the already incredibly long list (which, since it was last compiled, should have mention of bans for Kevin Nolan and Demba Ba)...