The magnificent seven

11pm marked quite possibly one of the busiest deadline days (and January transfer market) that Preston have had in quite a long time. Since Graham Westley took charge just over 2 weeks ago, he has brought in 7 players: Chris Holroyd, Jamie McAllister, Andy Procter, Alex Marrow, Chris Robertson, Rhys Murphy and Graham Cummins. Overall there were 9 signings as Bunn and Jervis were brought in on New Years, but both have since left with Jervis' month loan not being renenwed and Bunn's loan deal being cancelled for an unknown reason which is slightly mysterious as he was man of the match in his only appearance in a 3-2 victory over Wycombe a few weeks ago.

There were also 2 other depatures from Deepdale with Clarke Carlisles loan being cancelled with the defender now on loan at Northampton for the rest of the season and young striker Juhvel Tsoumou has been loaned out to Plymouth for the rest of the season, I think both deals are beneficial to the club as Carlisle has had a disappointing time at the club, particularly in recent months where he struggled to hold down a place after Preston began sliding down the table and the sacking of Phil Brown as manager in December. Tsoumou hasn't had much of a chance at Preston since signing in August but has got a handful of goals and a loan spell with first team football will do him the world of good and hopefully he comes back a far better player in June.

To replace the outgoing Tsoumou and the injured pairing of Hume and Mellor, Westley brought in Graham Cummins and Rhys Murphy. Murphy is a loan signing from Arsenal until the end of the season and is someone who is held in high regard at the club and is a regular scorer in their reserve team. Cummins scored 42 goals in 62 games in a very prolific spell for Cork City and they were very reluctant to let him sign which can only be good news from a Preston fans perspective. The fact that he described signing for Preston as a dream come true shows that he'll always give 110% playing for the club which is exactly the kind of players we need if we are to start going up this division, if only most of the players last season shared this attitude then maybe we wouldn't be in League One in the first place

With Carlisle being sent back to Burnley and Craig Morgan being suspended for three games after a straight red card in the 2-1 defeat to Yeovil on Saturday it was imperative that we signed a central defender to plug a fairly large gap and Westley was quick to sign Chris Robertson from Torquay, a product of the Sheffield United academy and also Torquays longest serving player and a member of last seasons team that lost in the Play Off final to Westleys Stevenage 1-0 at Old Trafford in May, the 6 foot 3 defender was signed for a fee believed to have been around £50,000 and will provide useful bite into a team which has looked rather lethargic in recent weeks, he can't do a worse job than some of the defending Deepdale has seen recently anyway.