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The ins, the outs and the shaking it all abouts at Bolton Wanderers this January transfer window

Ins
The Guardian estimates that we have £5 million to spend, which is why Joey Barton (thank God), Jimmy Bullard (another person who thinks Phil Brown is a better bet than Gary Megson) and several others (see shaking it all abouts below) will not be donning the white shirt any time soon.

Instead, Megson will be searching the bargain basement bucket for the remainder of this season’s January transfer window, for example…

Swindon Town striker Ian Cox is wanted by Bolton and, er Barnsley and Huddersfield (to be fair Spurs and Fulham are also being linked). Other cheap options could be Grant Leadbitter (Sunderland), Szabolcs Huszt (Hannover) and Mark Davies (Wolves).

A more exciting option might be Sebastien Puygrenier’s Zenit St Petersburg team-mate Pavel Pogrebnyak, who is a striker. Surely he’d be a better option than Darius Vassell, Kevin Doyle or Marlon Harewood, anyway. Or would he?

Outs
Sunderland boss Ricky Sbragia has decided he doesn’t want Danny Shittu (must have got round to watching that tape of him playing), but will Sam Allardyce come to the rescue of the increasingly unsettled Shittu?

Other players who might need to leave to make way for others are Ricardo Vaz Te (surely the injury means he’ll be around until the summer), Tamir Cohen (no great loss) and Jlloyd Samuel (a more surprising rumour).

Liberian youngster David Gbemie has been shipped out to the mighty Burscough FC on loan, which I’m guessing means he won’t be making the move to the first time, like, ever. Similarly, Michael Burns has left for Carlisle to team up with a host of other former Wanderers.

Shaking it all abouts
Bolton have apparently sent ‘a delegation’ to Portugal to sign Sporting Lisbon striker midfielder Miguel Veloso for a club record £12 million. Would we have taken on Ariza Makukula’s wages if we were about to break the bank for another striker? I doubt it. Besides, Veloso didn’t seem too convinced by the delegation according to this.

Manchester City and England defender Micah Richards – once a rumoured target for Chelsea – doesn’t seem too happy by a prospective move to the Reebok either.

Another defender who has been linked with Bolton but is now likely to go elsewhere is Hearts’ Christophe Berra, who seems Sunderland bound.

Perhaps Turkish centre-half Gokhan Zan is more likely? But with five centre-halves already on the books – and a move for West Ham’s Calum Davenport already abandoned – surely Megson’s priorities will lie elsewhere, unless he can offload the Shittu. Ditto for Rangers’ Madjid Bougherra.

A midfielder would now seem to be the main priority, but talk of Wolves’ Michael Kightly has gone quiet, Axel Witsel of Standard Liege is surely too expensive at £8 million, it’s game over in the race for Bullard and Olivier Dacourt would rather play in the Italian second division with Parma, it would seem.

What do you think? Have your say below…

- The Times declaring that Sam Allardyce’s failure to land a managerial job meant that he’d been infected by the ‘English disease’, which of course was made to look a little bit silly when he was appointed manager of Blackburn a few days later (although some might argue that’s a very different kind of disease).

- Mind you, they made a good point when they said that if Allardyce had achieved in Spain what he did with Bolton, he would have landed a Champions League job… something they revisited when they berated Niall Quinn for not hiring Allardyce at Sunderland.

- Meanwhile… Gary Megson’s not very subtle hints about wanting money to spend in January have paid off… and that has inevitably led to more Bolton Wanderers transfer rumours… midfielder Steven Mouyokolo and centre back Christophe Berra.

- And after his dismal attempts at mind games before the Liverpool game earlier this season, Megson appears to have upped his game with this attempt to pile pressure on Portsmouth keeper David James ahead of this weekend’s match.

- The Bolton Wanderers Supporters Association continuing their attempted resurgence by giving you the chance to have your say on the toilets at the Reebok… and speaking of crap… it looks like the days of free travel to away games may be over.

- And finally… if anyone can explain what Liberty are doing getting involved in football feel free to let me know in the comment box below (are there not enough Guantanamo Bay inmates to campaign for?).