The McCarthy era

United have today signed their second loan player of the week, on transfer deadline day. Wycombe Wanderers former captain, centre back Paul McCarthy signed on a one month loan and, like Dominic Foley, there is an option to extend this until the end of the season. McCarthy is out of contract at Wycombe at the end of the season and due to cost cutting measures at the Chairboys he has already been informed that he won't be offered a new contract. Like Foley, McCarthy is from Cork in the Republic of Ireland.

In other deadline day moves former United striker Ben Abbey joined Macclesfield from Woking on non-contract terms. Hull City forked out £100,000 on Stockport's Ben Burgess, Orient took Greg Heald and Ben Purser from Barnet for an undisclosed amount, and Exeter signed Bangor City's Philip Baker on a free. Other free transfers included Neil Bennett moving from Bradford City to Rochdale, tomorrow's opponents Swansea took Jonathon Coates from Woking, Rushden signed Dean Holdsworth from Coventry, Kidderminster took Cheltenham's Hugh McAuley, Bournemouth signed Scott McDonald from Southampton, Lincoln took on Belper Town's Niall McNamara and Mark Ward, Bristol Rovers signed Andy Rammell from Wycombe and Southend signed Craig Strachan's brother Gavin from Peterborough.

Significant loan deals involving Division Three clubs include York signing Sunderland's Keith Graydon, Bournemouth signed Middlesbrough's Philip Gulliver, Southend borrowed Ron Henry from Tottenham, Tom Newey signed for Darlington from Leeds, Michael Taylor joined Rochdale from Blackburn and Scott Partridge went from Rushden to Shrewsbury.

Swans song

United have a rare Friday night fixture tomorrow when they visit Swansea for a game that was moved from the Saturday because of the Wales international in Cardiff. United know that if they beat the league's 92nd club they will go up from tenth to third, above Bournemouth on goal difference, at least for about 17 hours.

New signing Paul McCarthy goes straight into the Us' squad, as does Dominic Foley, although whether Ian Atkins will want to start with McCarthy, who won't have had much chance to meet his new colleagues, is doubtful after the back line's semi-decent display up at Bury. Also included in the first team squad for the first time is 16 year old Blackbird Leys boy Dexter Blackstock, who has scored four goals in the last two reserves games. It is highly unlikely that Blackstock will feature, even on the bench, but the experience of travelling and training with the first team squad will surely be a big confidence boost for the youngster.

Swansea have been hit by the news that leading scorer James Thomas is out with an ankle injury, but this is balanced by the fact that they still retain Matt Murphy in their squad. Murphy has scored three goals for the Swans this season, but hasn't played since December so there must be another reason for the Swans' poor league position. Murphy's absence from Swansea's team leads us to the conclusion that United will fail to do the double over our Welsh cousins, Swansea prevailing by a single goal. We hope we're wrong.