Tom Naylor has signed on a 3 year deal on a free from Wigan Athletic. This is a very very good signing for us and one which will help us in our bid for promotion back to the football league. He played nearly every game for Wigan last season in the Championship.

We need a striker, goalkeeper and I reckon another centre-back.

Hull City midfielder Regan Slater has signed a new three-year contract.

The 23-year-old made 46 appearances in the 2022-23 season and won the club's players' player and supporters' player of the year awards.

"I'm buzzing. It's great to be rewarded for all the hard work I've put in," he told BBC Radio Humberside.

"I'm looking to kick on and I feel like I've improved every season I've been here and the manager can get the best out of me."

He added: "The aim is to win as many games as we can and hopefully that takes us to where we want to be.

"We need to be ruthless. There were a lot of games last season where we were arguably the better team but we didn't come out on top."

Watford have signed striker Rhys Healey following the expiry of his contract with French club Toulouse.

Healey missed much of last season following a serious knee injury but returned to score twice in four games at the end of it.

He joined Toulouse in the summer of 2020 after scoring 11 goals in 19 league games for MK Dons in the previous campaign.

The 28-year-old has agreed a two-year deal at Vicarage Road.

And he is Watford's first signing since Valerien Ismael became head coach.

The Hornets finished 11th in the Championship in 2022-23, six points outside the play-off places, and have since sold Brazilian forward Joao Pedro to Brighton for a fee of just under £30m.

Healey began his career at Cardiff City and had a series of loan spells at clubs including Colchester, Dundee and Newport County, before signing for MK Dons.

Following his move to France, he scored 15 goals in his first season and 20 in 32 games in his second as Toulouse were promoted to Ligue 1.

Reading have confirmed strikers George Puscas and Yakou Meite will both leave the club this summer.

Puscas, 27, has completed a permanent move to Serie A side Genoa for an undisclosed fee after spending last season on loan there.

Meanwhile, 27-year-old Meite has rejected a new contract offer following their relegation to League One.

The Ivory Coast international signed in 2016 and made 165 appearances for the Royals, scoring 47 goals.

Puscas played for Reading 90 times, scoring 20 goals after signing from Inter Milan in 2019.

The Romanian helped Genoa achieve promotion from Serie B as he scored four goals in 25 appearances.

He last featured for the Royals in January 2022 and spent the second half of that season on loan at Pisa.

Meite signed from Paris Saint-Germain but initially struggled to break into the first team, spending 2017-18 on loan at French side Sochaux.

The forward scored four goals last season after missing the majority of the 2021-2022 campaign due to a cruciate ligament injury.

Hibs drawn v Vikingur (Faroes) or Inter Club D'Escaldes (Andorra)

Quali-ties will take place on 27 July and 3 August.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65894218

Rodgers finally arrives at Celtic Park and becomes the highest paid Celtic manager in Scot footie history. He'll have thrashed out a common agreement re his player budget required to give them a decent chance in their UEFA Champs League group next season. No doubt, there will be lotsa activity in the transfer market in the weeks ahead. Also John Kennedy "staying put" and ditto re the position of Gavin Strachan.

This match at Hampden Park can't come quick enough for Scotland fans (tickets could be sold out 3 x over, such is the high demand from all over Scotland!) as a victory will almost guarantee Scotland a Euro quali place with the percentage of certainty rising to roughly 97%. The place will be buzzing tomorrow night with a tremendous atmosphere from the tartan army. I think Stevie Clarke will keep the players' feet firmly on the ground all the same and is well aware of a potential "banana skin" fixture v them. The Scotland fans will play a big part in attaining a positive result. IMO any kinda win will do, the 3 pts more important than the performance. Our record at Hampden Park is very good and I reckon these players will be well up for this match; they'll get better as the games are gradually ticked off - confidence sky high and no wonder! C'mon Scotland! Lets do this and make it a party night all over Scotland!!

We have a new format for this season, which I put forward as an idea at the end of last season. Nobody offered any objections so here it is explained......

Firstly, I thought it was getting a bit boring towards the end with the league format as it was with the champion being so far ahead and everybody else not much to play for apart from the push for a play off spot, which was a bit of an anticlimax anyway. The most exciting bit was the tussle for 8th, 9th and 10th positions with Shep, Ritchie and Amelia. 

So I'm splitting the group up into two groups with the top six from last season in the top group and the bottom six in group 2. At the end of the season, the winner of group 2 and the bottom of group 1 will swap places in what is commonly known as "promotion" and "relegation". It's something that most football fans will be familiar with, unless you're a fan of Liverpool or Arsenal or one of those other fashionable clubs.

The second placed player in group 2 will then have a play off with the player who finishes second from the bottom in group 1 to decide whether they will be going up, down or staying where they are.

We're going to have two seasons in one though, just to try and make it a bit more interesting and not so long drawn out. The first season will end on the Boxing Day fixtures, with the play offs being on the dates of the New Years Day games and the FA Cup 3rd round weekend.

The second season will start the following week, finishing on the last game of the Championship season. Then another period of relegation/promotion play off games, taking in such fixtures as the EFL play offs, FA Cup Final, UEFA finals and such like.

Each group will have it's own set of fixtures. Both groups will have the Town games, with scorers to predict as before. Then it will be a split of Championship fixtures and bonus matches. And not as many fixtures to go at. Hopefully around ten, eleven or twelve games per Matchday.

The rest of the rules will be the same as before apart from the which will still be in use, but I'm going to get arsey about it. Sometimes in the past, I've been able to just award two points immediately because it was such a nailed on thing to happen. Not accusing anyone of cheating. Far from it. I didn't put any boundaries on it, so anything was alright. So now I'm restricting it to three goal scorers in any of the games in your group. Sorry to all our more adventurous badgerers.

Here's how that will appear at the end of the fixture list. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.......


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Any of those will score two points if correct. No minus points for getting it wrong.

The joker  will still be the same as before, ie doubling your points for a correct prediction or minus 2 for getting it wrong.

I hope you'll all come back and play and if anybody else out there wants to join in, you're more than welcome.

This is how last season finished.......


Final Table after Matchday 38:

1. jjamez = 872 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 851 pts
   
3. themaclad = 826 pts
   
4. theo_luddite = 819 pts
   
5. St Charles Owl = 808 pts
   
6. neonfoxinthebox = 804 pts
   
7. Lord Snooty = 762 pts
   
8. ritchiebaby = 713 pts
   
9. SHEP_HTAFC = 712 pts
   
10. Amelia Chaffinch = 710 pts
    
11. Devongone = 664 pts
    
12. WakeyTerrier = 171 pts
    
    
    So the new two groups will be......
    
    
    Division One:
    
    1. jjamez
       
    2. Baggiebob(BBB)
       
    3. themaclad
       
    4. theo_luddite
       
    5. St Charles Owl
       
    6. neonfoxinthebox
       
    
    Division Two:
    
    1. Lord Snooty
       
    2. ritchiebaby
       
    3. SHEP_HTAFC
       
    4. Amelia Chaffinch
       
    5. Devongone
       
    6. WakeyTerrier
       

Mon July 10, 19:00, Bodmin Town (a)
Wed July 12, 19:00, Tavistock AFC (a)
Sat July 15, 13:00, Liskeard Athletic (a)
Sat July 22, 15:00, Stockport County (a)
Sat July 29, 15:00, SC Heerenveen (H)

Anybody going to Cornwall?

It is imminent and the fixtures will be announced can't wait look forward to Plymouth away on a Wednesday night also Carathing Cup draw Thursday as well
Can't wait honest