A shorter Loan Watch than usual this week. My fault, I started reading an interview with Ed Wood about his record-breaking tour of 93 league grounds and I've only just woken up. I had a dream that Ed was setting off in a mini on a trip to visit every football ground in the world and he was taking me, Russell Slade and Phil 'The Power' Taylor for company. I need to eat less cheese.
We'll start with Semi Ajayi. A man of the match performance for Rotherham at Brentford and a singling out from manager Paul Warne who said that "Semi was brilliant again today". The Rotherham players 'manned up' after last week's feeble showing against us and Warne was waiting by the tunnel to shake hands with all of them having blanked them after last week's game. Semi was desperately unlucky to give away a penalty in injury time with the score at 2-2 and Rotherham went on to lose 4-2. Tom Adeyemi started as a number 10 which seems odd but he had a decent game too.
A quieter week for Emyr Huws at Ipswich and Matty Kennedy at Plymouth as they were both involved in 1-1 draws, Deji Oshilaja played in a 2-2 draw in the week for Gillingham but missed yesterday's win through injury. Gillingham have cut short the season long loan of former City 'player' Jay-Emmanuel Thomas and sent him back to QPR. One fan said 'good riddance, a terrible waste of talent, can't recall ever seeing a lazier and more disinterested individual'. He must be getting him muddled up with someone else.
Another goal for Idriss Saadi, and a good one too, in a 2-1 home loss for Kortrijk. That's 13 for the season now for Idriss. He celebrated his goal by putting on an Incredible Hulk mask. As you do. A win for Stuart O'Keefe as MK Dons beat Shrewsbury 2-1. The local paper gave him a 6 and said 'moved in and out of the game but did the nitty-gritty stuff well'. They definitely haven't got him muddled up with someone else.
Defeats for our other two League One players. Ben Wilson let in three again as Rochdale lost at Peterborough in a game with three red cards, two for Rochdale. Poor old Adam le Fondre. He managed to escape the Russell Slade regime but now finds himself being bombarded with long balls again, this time at Bolton as they lost 2-0 at Sheffield United in a game featuring two former City keepers, Simon Moore and Mark Howard.
In the non-leagues, Cinderford had a win and a draw this week. Isaac Kelly played in both while Jarrad Welch just played yesterday. They are still bottom and need snookers to stay up but results have improved lately, seems like our lads are making a difference. Lloyd Humphries played for Weston in yesterday's 2-0 league win at Hampton and Richmond, who will have a farewell ceremony tomorrow at their ground for Alan Simpson as part of his funeral procession. Along with Ray Galton, Simpson wrote Steptoe and Son. He had a stand named after him there and was life-president at the club.
A quiet week for our former players but we don't often get a chance to bring up Champions League assists on here so let's finish with a mention of Danny Drinkwater's excellent ball in for Jamie Vardy on Wednesday in Seville.
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