UWE Stadium, Injury Recovery, Gillingham and Player Movement...

It's been a fairly eventful week so far it's fair to say.

News emerged late Monday evening that a press conference had been called for 7.30am Tuesday morning, although very few people knew quite why. Some suggested loan extensions for Oli Norburn, Cian Bolger and Andy Dorman although they were quickly dismissed as press conferences aren't usually called to announce the loan extensions of two young players. All educated guesses pointed at an announcement regarding the UWE Stadium, although what the news was exactly nobody knew for sure. Either way, you felt it had to be positive news for a press conference to be called.

Bright and early the next day I checked the official website to find that all legal agreements had been signed by the football club, UWE and Sainsbury's. Excellent news, that's for sure. Having said that, in my head I had probably already assumed it had already been done, but it's reassuring to now for certain now. I'm all of a sudden much more enthused about the prospect again, although I'll stop myself from getting too excited as this is Rovers we're talking about. Things are looking encouraging although I have a lingering fear that our problem is going to be with Sainsbury's getting planning permission for The Mem site. Fingers crossed we can get the green light from South Glos. council and Sainsbury's get the go-ahead from Bristol City Council. If you're reading 'ROSE', you can't tell me that if they put a supermarket near your house you wouldn't use it!

On the back of that good news came further positivity from the training ground on the back of our derby draw with Swindon. Scott Bevan was pleased and thinks the team are finally starting to 'click'. It's been a long time coming but there is certainly improvement in our performances, hopefully we can keep that going. Another bright note this week is that Scott McGleish has declared himself fit for action following his ankle injury. It looked a bad one at the time and he's missed a few matches, but the striker reckons he has recovered and he's made himself available to play. He's no 30 goal a season or even 20 goal a season man for us, but I'm sure his experience will prove more than helpful in the coming matches over Christmas and the New Year. Welcome back to the fold Scott.

As we welcome Scott back though, we must also begin saying our goodbyes to a couple of players. Granted they've not featured much over the past year and beyond but both Charlie Clough (who recently completed his loan at Bath City) and Ben Swallow (who got sent off after coming on as a substitute against AFC Totton) have been given free transfers. To be fair to Paul Buckle, I think he's doing the right thing. If he knows already that neither will be offered a new deal in the summer, it's best they are given a head-start on the players who will be released at the end of the season. Good luck to them.

Another potential departure from the squad, rather predictably, is Stuart Campbell. He was linked with a move away after discussions with Buckle over the summer but has remained with the club after clear the air talks. Nick Higgs and Buckle maintained that no new deal would be offered at this stage to the midfielder given his age (33) and it looks like the player is seeking a move. I don't blame him but at the same time agree with the stance made by the club. He's not been anywhere near how good he used to be for a few years now, so I think his time to go has arrived. Good luck Cams if you do move on now.

At the end of all that we have another league game on Saturday as the Gas travel to Gillingham. Other than loanee forward Jo Kuffour who is unable to play, Frank Nouble, also on loan, will be able to play for the final time as his 93 day loan expires. He started well for the Gills and will be hoping to impress before he leaves as it might secure him another loan deal with the club in the New Year. It'll be a tough game. They'll be expected to win every home match they have, something Buckle alludes to in his press interviews today, so we'll need to defend resolutely as we did against Southend and attack as we did against AFC Totton.

Difficult? Yes. But with our improved performances I'm hopeful we can pick up some points.

Roll on 3 points, or is that too much to ask?