Former Portsmouth coach Brian Kidd is now expected to join Stoke City’s management team in the next few days, having been linked with a move to the Blues earlier in the week.
Despite Town manager Roy Keane having worked under Kidd at Manchester United, the link-up seemed unlikely with the Blues boss appearing to rule out any further changes to his coaching staff at the end of last week: "That’s it in terms of the staff. I’m very happy with the staff who were at the club.
"That was a big issue for me when I came down. You always want to bring in one or two of your own staff in terms of people you can trust, but I also wanted to be fair to the staff that were here and they’ve all proved to be very, very good. We need a good team behind the first team, and I think we have that.”
Meanwhile, striker Connor Wickham says he’s claiming a ‘hat-trick’ on his first senior start at Shrewsbury last night: "I scored two and also converted a penalty - so that's three goals in my book and a hat-trick is enough to claim the match ball.”
Elsewhere, Barnsley have revealed that they have received what they are calling "a substantial sell-on bonus” from Jordan Rhodes’s recent move from the Blues to Huddersfield.
Rhodes, who joined Town for an initial fee of £5,000 in 2005 when a schoolboy after his father Andy became the Blues’ goalkeeper-coach, signed for the Terriers in a deal worth an initial £700,000 rising to £850,000 with top-ups.