Dan the Fan: Rooney completes Town's midfield puzzle

It just sounds like another week of transfer news from Swindon Town.

So far during this transfer window we’ve signed Paul Benson, Luke Rooney, Ronan Murray on loan and the assurance that more players will be coming in soon.

After the 1-1 draw away at the Memorial Stadium and what followed in Paolo’s post-match interview about needing players the board promised money to invest in the squad.

And its encouraging to see the board sticking to their word and are now backing the boss with the money needed to make the club compete higher up the league.

We all know that the ‘Paolo Di Canio effect’ has made a huge difference to the club in nearly every way but especially in the transfer market and the caliber of players that are now signing for the club, and we saw the full evidence of that on Tuesday.

After months of rumours and speculation Luke Rooney finally joined Town for an undisclosed fee on a two and a half year deal from Gillingham.

After Luke turned down a new deal at Priestfield late last year his exit has been obvious.

And Town have done a great job in securing the signing of such an exciting player who will make a huge difference to Town coming forward on the left hand side of midfield.

Ever since Luke made his professional debut he’s been making people talk across the football league about his potential and especially his ability to run at pace with the ball being stuck to his feet and his ability to get past defenders.

With Luke coming into the first team that obviously means Raffaele De Vita’s first team place is under serious threat.

But hopefully that’ll spur him on to be a better player and we might see him back up front for the second half of the season.

The other main transfer talk of the week has been local rivals Oxford accepting a bid from Swindon for Malmesbury born striker James Constable and then the player turning down the chance to talk to the club.

I’m not going to lie I was disappointed when I heard he didn’t even want to talk to Town about a potential move up the A420 to Swindon.

Was the whole transfer just Paolo being mischievous with Oxford or did he actually rate the player as well? I think it was properly a bit of both.

Maybe he’s just happy with his current situation at Oxford or he doesn’t want the extra hassle this move would bring him, but whatever the reason he’s still a Oxford Utd player going into the big derby game on March 3rd.

Tomorrow Town entertains 15th placed Macclesfield Town at the County Ground for only the 2nd time in the clubs history.

Due to Macclesfield being a non-league club until 1997 the two teams haven’t crossed paths many times before.

The first time we played the Silkmen at the County Ground was in 2007 when Town took all the points with a 2-0 win after goals from Ricky Shakes and Lee Peacock.

The next time the two teams played in September 2011 the score was reserved and it was that 2-0 defeat that kick started the unbeaten run that has pushed Town towards the promotion places this season.

With Southend having a difficult home game against 5th placed Shrewsbury and Crawley having a tricky game away against a recently re-energised Plymouth side, Town could possibly close the gab on the top three to just two points.

And with are front line of Rooney, Smith, Ferry, Ritchie, Benson and Connell to trouble the Macclesfield defence I back Town to take all the points at the County Ground on Saturday afternoon.

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