Brian Talbot’s squad building continued today with the signing of goalkeeper Billy Turley from Rushden & Diamonds. Talbot revealed at the fans’ forum that he wanted to bring in another goalkeeper to provide competition for Player of the Year Chris Tardif.

Turley is 31 years old, and leaves Rushden just as Andy Woodman, for whom Turley used to deputise at Northampton, joined the Diamonds as player-coach. He follows Stuart Gray from Nene Park and is another player who used to play for Talbot when he was at Irthlingborough.

While this news won’t come as a complete surprise to those who have been following the United rumour mill, what most supporters want to see is a new striker to replace Tommy Mooney. This would seem to be an even more pressing concern with the stories circulating concerning Criag Davies, who is alleged to be the subject of a ?250,000 bid from Charlton Athletic. Charlton have refused to comment on this speculation, but Rage Online was informed last week (subject to confidentiality, unfortunately) that Charlton had come in with an offer, and Talbot confirmed at the fans’ forum that a Premiership club was interested in Davies. The sum mentioned, plus conditionality clauses, is probably about the minimum that United ought to expect for the promising teenager, who is under contract until the end of next season, but only if the money is made available to Talbot to bring in a replacement. Failure to do this would leave United very short up front, and would almost certainly lead to another season of mid-table obscurity, at best.