So what is going on?

Admittedly recent close seasons have verged on the traumatic, but the last couple of months have been excessively dull. Not a single signing, and Buckle hasn't even managed to get Chris Robertson under contract. We've become accustomed to Leroy and Atkins waiting for the assorted odds and sods to turn up for pre-season trials, but Buckle is usually much faster out of the blocks.

In the last couple of summers, Bucks has almost immediately identified his targets and gone for them. The likes of Wroe and Thompson were brought in for their performances against us, while in his first few weeks in charge the manager raided his contacts book for anyone he knew would be up for the battle. This time we've had no news, which can lead us to one of a few conclusions.

The first is that Buckle has missed out on all of his targets, and we are on to Plan B. This seems unlikely, given Bucks' previous successes in convincing players to join the cause. However, that theory is more appealing than the alternative - that Buckle did not plan ahead for promotion, and spent no time identifying which signings he would like to make should we find ourselves in League Two.

Or maybe it's a more straight-forward reason, that for budgetary reasons no one at the club was able tell Buckle how much money he would have available next season. In which case things should be sorted. Hopefully we will see activity soon.