Loan Watch (7/5)

[Lawnmower]

Thanks for the entertainment over the past few months

[Loramski]

Thanks everyone, much appreciated as always.

The lack of Velikonja stuff hasn't been my choice, there really hasn't been much to go on. He moved back to Slovenia at the start of the season, when he joined Olimpija Ljubljana, and was apparently the highest paid player in the Slovenian leagues. Him and his missus had a baby and I assumed he'd settle there but it was soon obvious that the club had only picked him up in order to sell him on, there was reported interest from Germany and Russia at that stage. A quiet start to the season cooled that interest and he didn't leave until January, to Genclerbirligi in Turkey's top division, for around 300,000 euros. He scored on his debut there but hasn't really been given a chance since. He's only made a couple of starts, the latest was at the weekend (having scored a hat-trick in a practice match in midweek) but he was subbed after an hour. Not exactly enough material there for a stand-up tour, I've just had to battle on without him for now. I'll certainly keep an eye on how things develop and hopefully I'll get a chance to blow the cobwebs off the Velikonja thread before long.

Thanks for the Belgian stuff, cantonboy. It's an interesting system they've got there, hats off to them for trying something different. I was going to mention their Championship at some point this season but never got round to it, it's great. Only 8 teams in it, they have two all-play-all leagues, one before and one after Xmas. The winner of each one (assuming different teams win, of course) then play each other to decide which team gets promoted. The aggregate points collected over the two leagues then come into play. The bottom four go into a relegation play-off while the top four (apart from the team who got promoted) move into the Europa League play-offs with the teams who finished 7th-15th in the top division. Excellent stuff. I'd like to see some changes over here but I don't think it'll happen until supporters of teams like West Brom or Stoke actually start dying of boredom from having to watch so many meaningless mid-table games, season after season.

By the way, apologies to Enoch. I know he wanted me to do some more Latin jokes this series but I felt 'always leave them wanting more' was the best policy on this occasion.