Actually, I don’t know if there’s really any connection, but just days after Martin O’Neill has said he’s not looking to sell or buy and then later pretty much admitted that if he did want to buy, he’d have to first sell, we have a couple of pieces of speculation floating around today.

This morning all the talk was of Glasgow Rangers’ Kris Boyd “being in talks” with Aston Villa, which the club later distanced themselves from a little, although they’ve certainly made better efforts to rubbish other rumours. The suggestion is that Boyd would actually be signing a pre-contract for a summer move when his contract with Rangers expires. Birmingham City are also said to be in the hunt after unsuccessfully trying to lure the player to the wrong side of Birmingham last year.

He’s got a decent strike record north of the border, but opinion about whether he could take that form down south seems divided.  In any case, he’s injured right now and since all talk seems to be of a summer move, I’ll give my shoulders a wee shrug and move on.

You don’t have to travel too far south of Scotland to run into the next rumour.  Talk around Sunderland last night was of a bid submission for Habib Beye which is likely to be accepted by Martin O’Neill.  You remember Habib, he’s the right back we bought from Newcastle in the summer.  He’s played a handful of games and is a decent enough defender, but going forward gets nervous in the final third and mostly passes the ball backwards.

The Daily Mail report that a £1.5m bid has been made and French talk radio were claiming a two and half year contract was being offered. No sources, no quotes, you know the deal.  Anyway, he’s very much a back up player and the money isn’t going to make any massive difference, so regardless of the accuracy of the story, it just gets a very Gallic shrug of the shoulders from me.

So there you go.  A rare outing for me into the exciting world of transfer speculation.  I feel kind of dirty, how was it for you?  To be honest I’m more interested in Big Sam Allardyce claiming that a side that scored 7 goals over two legs is only going to Wembley because of a slight shove in the box.

Ah well, I can’t blame him I suppose.  His side certainly deserve plenty of credit for the way they approached the game at Villa Park.  Actually, any side that scores 4 away goals will probably have good reason to wonder how on earth they didn’t get through.  Did I mention that we scored SEVEN?!?

If you’ve been living in a cave and/or you’re incredibly busy and haven’t seen the goals yet, there’s a 60 second video in the sidebar on the right.  If that’s not brief enough for you, can’t help you I’m afraid.

And finally, yesterday’s wallpaper seems to be going down pretty well so I think I’ll probably look at an iPhone and Blackberry version when I get a spare moment.  Watch this space.