Borstal Boys on the move while Mackems sign double agent

So, what went on of interest elsewhere?

Well, there was the Little Waster cropping up on Smogside. Tony Mowbray claims he's "looked really good in training, nice and sharp" - yes Tony, but you just wait until your next fixture and see how long he can go without picking up some kind of knack.

The Little Waster's previous club QPR were predictably frantic, adding (amongst others) another ex-Toon forgotten man, Jermaine Jenas, to their hastily assembled and grossly overpaid squad. JJ has an avowed dislike of fishbowls - I wonder how he'll fare together with the other big fish (and their egos) in that particular small pond if results don't pick up quickly...

Meanwhile, down at the Dark Place, the Mackems released Louis Saha, with chief executive Margaret Byrne "thank[ing] him for his contribution". If I didn't know wit was beyond that lot, I'd think this was a sarcastic comment about a player who failed to start a game during his six months there.

Intriguingly, his sort-of-replacement - at a sizeable cost of £5.5m - is Swansea striker Danny Graham. The born-and-bred Geordie received a warm welcome - well, a chorus of boos - when the Swans visited the Stadium of Shite on Tuesday, largely on account of some nicely disparaging comments he made to a Toon fanzine some time ago. C'mon now Agent Graham, do your duty. Here's hoping this turns out like Lee Clark all over again...

Quote of the day

"The spirit of English football is amazing and I realised that from an early age from my time in the North East with Newcastle. The people up here have something special about them, they are really passionate about football and I really enjoyed my time at Newcastle for sure."

Louis Saha, recently hoodwinked into signing for the Mackems, fondly recalls his brief spell on loan at St James' Park in 1998-9. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the Frenchman scored as many goals against us on his Spurs debut in February (two) as he did during that loan stint. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to us facing him again.

Meanwhile, another new arrival at the Dark Place is Steven Fletcher, for whom the Mackems have forked out a fee of £12m, which looks ridiculous when you consider our outlay on Papiss Cisse or the paltry £5m Spurs paid for Emmanuel Adebayor. The Scottish lunk has suffered relegation from the Premier League twice before, with Burnley and then Wolves. Wouldn't it be a shame if lightning struck for a third time?

Movers and shakers

Reflections on the club's activities in the transfer window from Paul tomorrow, but, in the meantime, what else of note happened on deadline day?

We looked on as several targets moved elsewhere: ex-Villa defender Liam Ridgewell continued on his tour of the West Midlands, joining West Brom from Birmingham and Ravel Morrison, the subject of a rejected bid from us earlier in the month, somewhat surprisingly left Man Utd for Championship football with West Ham. Fat Sam went striker-crazy, also adding Bristol City's Nicky Maynard and Barnsley's Ricardo Vaz Te to his forward line - but following his side's 5-1 pummelling by previously hapless Ipswich he may be feeling he should have concentrated on the other end of the pitch...

Meanwhile, Wayne Bridge, a player with whom we've been strongly linked in the past, was recruited on loan by the Mackems and so could face us at St James' Park next month. They've been able to do the deal on the cheap too, paying a fraction of his wages in a similar deal to the one struck by MK Dons for Alan Smith.

When Bolton steamed in with an improved £7m bid for Wilfried Zaha, I suspected it would kick off a furious bidding war - but against the odds everything remained quiet and the winger remains a Crystal Palace player. Equally surprising was the silence surrounding Huddersfield's Jordan Rhodes and Blackburn's Junior Hoilett.

Several old boys were on the move too. Sebastien Bassong swapped Spurs for Wolves on loan (a deal I really feel we should have pursued ourselves), tonight's opponents Blackburn identified QPR's out-of-favour right-back Bradley Orr as the man to lead them to safety (yes, me neither) and, in perhaps the most surprising move of the day, Spurs took a gamble on chronic physio-botherer Louis Saha. Perhaps Droopy's mind's elsewhere at the moment...

On the subject of old boys, Rocky played and scored a year to the day that Jabba lined his pockets with £35m of Liverpool's cash. That makes it a cool £5m per goal. Meanwhile, Demba Ba has more than twice as many in just six months, and came on a free. Doesn't look quite such a bad deal now as it did then, does it?