Town chairman David Sheepshanks refused to comment when asked whether George Burley had gone to watch Anderlecht’s Bart Goor play for the Belgian side against Leeds last night.

The chairman, however, did warn fans: "Don’t read too much into any speculation. George will be watching a lot of players over the next few days. He is seeing a game on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week."

The Town manager was at the Bent Lane training ground early yesterday afternoon, but certainly had time to get to the Champions’ League game.

The Belgian press have been linking Town with Goor, a left-sided midfield player. The 27-year-old is reportedly valued at £5.5 million by his club not the lower figure mentioned yesterday.

The FA are yet to receive a verdict from their advisory panel on the Marcus Stewart red card incident. Stewart was thought likely to hear whether his sending off had been quashed yesterday, but he has had to wait. The news could well turn up today.

John McGreal is set to get himself back towards full match fitness after his suspension tonight when he takes his place in the reserves. He could find himself with a tricky evening as Matt Le Tissier looks likely to be in the Southampton side he will be facing.

Also included for Town will be trialist Stephen Cosgrove, but Cobi Jones won’t be able to play as he has no work permit. Six of the Youth side which did so well to win 4-2 at Sheffield United on Monday will also be involved including Lee Beevers who had an impressive game for the reserves last week, Steve Burton who did well as a sub a week ago and Matt Bloomfield who has done well on his reserve appearances.

Reserves squad: Branagan, Miller, McGreal, Brown, Karic, Abidallah, Cosgrove, Nicholls, Friars, Midgley, Bloomfield, Burton, Pullen, Atrun, Beevers, Moffat, Bonwick and Ambrose.

Town’s Roadshow at Woodbridge School last night proved an interesting and well-attended event. Town chairman David Sheepshanks, club secretary David Rose, commercial director Paul Clouting and reserve team coach Dale Roberts were all in attendance as well as Matt Holland, Hermann Hreidarsson, Jim Magilton and Mark Venus. Magilton once again showed he was the joker in the pack with most of the laughs coming from the Northern Irishman. Hreidarsson showed that he has a bit of a dry sense of humour with one or two wry replies.

The majority of the evening was taken up with a question and answer session run by Radio Suffolk’s Terry Baxter. He read questions previously sent in as well as taking some questions from the floor. A lot of ground was covered and we’ll give a quick run through of the more interesting areas of discussion.

Town chairman David Sheepshanks gave an overview of the current state of the South Stand development and the club’s further building plans for the future. The extra 2,000 seats for the last few games of the season is still definitely on the cards and the new North Stand still hasn’t been given the final sign-off at board level. There are still a number of planning hurdles to be leapt amongst other things. A possible timetable is in place and it is expected, although not definite, that if building goes ahead in the summer there will be a couple of games next season when North Stand fans will be housed elsewhere. TWTD has learned that the club have asked the FA if their first game of the season can be away next season to give us and extra week to get work done.

The players and Dale Roberts were asked about refereeing and they were surprisingly open and out-spoken. Dale Roberts said that there was a general feeling amongst those in the game that more refs should come from within the game, ex-players. Jim Magilton, currently on a misconduct charge, said that he didn’t feel referees took the smaller clubs as seriously as they did the big clubs, citing Andy D’Urso’s reaction to Town’s players confronting him at Chelsea with his reaction to a similar incident involving Manchester United players last season. He added: "It’s a joke, an absolute joke."

Magilton also told of an unnamed referee in a Town-Manchester United match. Mark Venus went up for a header with Ryan Giggs and the Welshman ended up on the ground after a clash of heads. Magilton said the referee ran over frantically saying: "Oooo! Ryan are you OK?!!" [spoken in the manner of a mother addressing an injured child].

Mark Venus added his view on the refereeing question suggesting that technology should be used where it can increase the likelihood of decisions being got right.

Paul Clouting talked about pay-per-view and Internet football. He said that the club were anxious that pay-per-view game shouldn’t price anyone out of the market. He re-iterated David Sheepshanks earlier statements about Town coverage on the Internet. From next season clubs will be allowed to show highlights of their games on their own websites 36-40 hours after the match is over. He added privately later that Town will seek to develop their website in the near future. He said the recent trip to the United States he made with chairman David Sheepshanks was very interesting and that the Internet was one area where they could learn a lot. Many areas of administration and presentation were looked at on the fact-finding visit.

David Rose spoke of concerns about parking and said the club are looking at other car parks that might be used to reduce the congestion around the ground.

David Sheepshanks moved on to transfers and said he didn’t think the system would be entirely dismantled although he expected it to change. He added that without the transfer system he didn’t think Town would have made it to the Premiership. He said: "The transfer system in England works very well."

He also cited the NFL/AFL as a much fairer set-up than football in this country. Gate receipts there are split 60/40 and all TV revenue is split equally among the teams. Jim Magilton said any removal of the transfer system would be "a devastating blow" to small clubs like his old team Oxford United. He said this is the view generally felt by players.

The chairman revealed that Tottenham have been forced to pay a sum to the ITFC Supporters’ Club after they broke Premier League rules by failing to give Town concessions back in August. David Rose said that "letters are going backwards and forwards at board level" about Chelsea’s similar lack of concessions last month. David Sheepshanks inclined to keep his views of Ken Bates to himself when they were requested.

Mark Venus was asked whether he felt David Beckham should be England captain. The centre-back said: "I don’t think we have a stand-out captain, but why not Beckham?"

He added he felt the Manchester United man was a fantastic player who had handled himself well.

Dale Roberts was asked why Martijn Reuser doesn’t get much of a look-in at first team level. Roberts said: "The reason we’ve done so well this year is the team, through teamwork. Reuser needs to be more of a team player."

He added that the Dutchman was aware of this and was working on this side of his game.

George Burley’s right-hand man added that Town’s target is to get better year-on-year through steady progress: Top 10, top 6, Europe. He said clubs need to establish themselves and push on.

Of Sky’s decision to show both legs of the Worthington Cup semi between Crystal Plalace and Liverpool and neither of ours David Sheepshanks said the club were: “Very miffed.”

He added that the club had spoken to Sky about the decision, but Murdoch’s men had decided they wanted to see one tie through both legs.

Dale Roberts spoke of the Academy saying how he thought it was a long-term investment from which we would see the first fruits in the next few years. He also praised the current crop of youngsters who are doing so well in the Youth Cup.

David Sheepshanks added on this subject: "It’s a long-term investment. We want to get to the stage where we have 50% of our first team from the Academy."

Mark Venus was asked about superstitions. It seems no-one at Town has any eccentric pre-match routine, although Marcus Stewart goes off to the loos for some quiet contemplation to get himself focused for the game. Jim Magilton was asked about a Beatles No1s CD which apparently had become the regular soundtrack in the dressing room until Dave Williams hid it: "And we haven’t won since we stopped playing it!" claimed the Northern Irishman.

The normally PR-perfect Matt Holland made an uncharacteristic faux pas when talking about music in the dressing room. He said some players like it and others don’t citing Titus Bramble as one who does, Matt added that he black players have tended to like music prior to games which sounded worse than it was given that Kieron Dyer was dressing room DJ for a while, and then David Johnson took over. Hermann Hreidarsson was asked about the dressing room at Wimbledon, the cool Icelander said: "They played the same music as Titus Bramble!”"

Jim Magilton was asked about Ian Harte’s reaction to Marcus Stewart’s tackle. What, as a player, do you feel about behaviour like that?: "What, apart from strangling him?" came the reply. Matt Holland, Harte’s Irish colleague, said that he: "Will be having some words with him in the next couple of weeks."

Further comments were made about the Birmingham game: "It was a bitter blow, but the Premiership was always our main task" - Jim Magilton. As well as Tony Mowbray who seems to be highly rated by players and staff alike.

David Sheepshanks summed up continuing Dale Roberts theme of Town getting better year-on-year. He said Town need to look at how clubs of our size in Europe have succeeded and he cited Auxerre, Lens, Heerenveen and Rosenberg as examples. Finally he added: "Europe is the dream and we must hold on to that."

Photo: Action Images

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