Doughty To Shake Up Acquisitions Panel

Nottingham Forest Chairman Nigel Doughty is said to be as upset as the ordinary fans in the stands, over the clubs' lack of signings during the January transfer window.

Doughty is believed to have sanctioned bids totalling more than £6m for the January window, but due to the workings of the acquisitions panel, the club spent zero.

The acquisitions panel consists of Billy Davies, Nigel Doughty, director of football David Pleat, chief scout, Keith Burt, chief executive Mark Arthur and finance director John Pelling. Although Doughty is a member of the panel, his role is only to agree to stump up the cash. The others are there to ensure a player is suitable for the club and that a fair price is paid.

Doughty as well as Davies, believes the process has cost the club to strengthen during this transfer window. Many fans would argue that it's cost us in the last three. Davies apparently listed as many as nine players for the panel to target, with the aim of securing three. That list allowed for certain targets not being attained and allowed for secondary targets to be approached. The end result, was that no one was brought in to add to a squad that is now effectively weaker than it was at the beginning of January.

Despite Doughty's own misgivings about the panel, he's not going to do away with it altogether. He's expected to trim it down in terms of numbers, in an effort to speed the process up. Hopefully he will take a few of the money men out of the equation and make it a little more football biased. This is not a pre planned move by the Chairman, more a reaction to the panels failings last month.

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