Again, the rumour mill on UTS has proved correct as the fourth (and possibly best) signing of the summer has been announced – former Swindon Town French left winger Sofiene Zaaboub.

Zaaboub was one of the few wingers to give Rhys Weston a hard time last season and this is a very welcome signing indeed.

The 6 foot winger is notorious for his habit of wearing gloves no matter what the weather, but don’t underestimate him, as he was interesting Championship Blackpool.

Prior to joining Swindon he played for ASA Montereau, AS Saint-Étienne, Modena F.C., Sora, Real Jaén, FC Brussels.

Zaaboub was Paul Sturrock’s first signing as Town manager and signed on a short term deal in November 2006 after leaving FC Brussels, just a few days after Sturrock had arrived at the club. Prior to joining Swindon he had many trials at higher-level clubs - including Córdoba C.F., Preston North End, Swansea City, Plymouth Argyle, Luton Town, Dundee and FC Metz, but his longest trial was at Sturrock’s former club Sheffield Wednesday.

In January 2006 Zaaboub signed a contract extension to keep him at Swindon until the end of the 2007/2008 season, after impressing Swindon fans and management alike on the left side of midfield

Ishmel may find it a little difficult getting a first team place on the left wing if this man plays to his potential.

As reported earlier, both Jabo Ibehre and Dwayne Mattis have signed on the dotted line for Walsall.

Jabo Ibehre put pen to paper on a one year deal. This could be to demonstrate that he’s the big, quick, strong forward we need to spark with the proven goalscorer still needed, or, should we gain promotion, enables us to offload a player who may be out of his depth in the Championship.

Dwayne Mattis, who had impressed on loan from Barnsley last season, signs for two years and should feature heavily in our campaigns over this period as he returns from his unforunate legbreak.

The two players are both on the right side of 30 and experienced in the English game, something of a departure from the norm for the Saddlers summer selection box. UTS wishes them both well in their endeavours this season. Good luck, lads!

UTS: Sometimes first with the rumours

Normally reliable UTS sources have informed us that the club will be making an announcement today that we have signed two more players.

One, as readers of the message board will know, is rumoured to be ex Orient striker Jabo Ibehre.

This is a gamble, as the 6 foot 2 inch centre forward’s goal scoring record is nothing to write home about, as he averages a mere 0.17 goals a game over his career. In fact, 112 League appearances and 97 sub appearances with just 36 goals in 8 years does mean he is likely at the last chance saloon.

The other signing, however, may be much more welcome, if he has fully regained his fitness. Our source tells us that Dwayne Mattis is the player, returning to the club where he had such a successful (if, unfortunately, brief) loan spell before breaking his leg.

Mattis, who has been highly thought of (and sought after) in the past, may be exactly the sort of player we need, if there are no long term effects from his broken leg.

According to the Express and Star, the Saddlers have made their first signing of the summer – Doncaster Rovers centre back Steve Roberts.

Roberts is 28 and 6 feet 1 and a former Welsh under 21 International. He started his career with Wrexham in 1998, moving to Doncaster Rovers on a free transfer in August 2005. Last season he was called up to the full Welsh squad by John Toshack, but didn’t make an appearance.

His career has been a little stop start at his two clubs, making 217 starts since 1998, an average of just over 20 a season, but he is highly thought of by the Donny fans and it seems that they had offered him a contract extension following their promotion to the Championship, but we have given him a longer deal.

More guff from the site that gives it to you straight up, if a little behind the times, during this closed season.

Players head for intensive care
The preseason begins in earnest on Wednesday, when the Saddlers squad assembles for the first time at the new traning camp in Essington, next to where our new 40,000 seater stadium won’t be.

Physio Jon Witney tells us that the players will undergo some serious fitness workouts to get them into peak shape for the season ahead. Given that the majority of the squad haven’t yet signed up, training may be even more intense for some latecomers!

Long and winding road
Jimmy “Sherlock” Mullen has warned that his intelligence reports a higher number of clubs with more money to spend on bigger squads than this time last year. As a consequence our expectations for next season have been downgraded from “let’s see if we can challenge” to “let’s see if we can match last year’s effort”. Given how hard we fought to get down to 12th last season that shouldn’t be too difficult, although one hopes the traumatic sale of key players in January is something we needn’t repeat.

Still, some entertaining football has been promised, so that should sway some of the fanbase.

New Signings
From the “next few days” comment (copyright Express & Star, any Saddlers news story filed between 15 May and 30 June) has risen a more structured battlecry, with Manager Mullen taking a more pragmatic approach. Whilst we thoroughly endorse his ‘get it right, not get it right now’ tactics, we’ll hang fire on delivering a full approval till we see exactly what the ‘get it right’ approach delivers. Now players are back off their holidays, cellphones are on and contracts honoured, perhaps someone will want to talk to us.

Transfer Gossip
The now-weekly slot where we deliver no news whatsoever remains empty.

That’s about all for now. Feel free to PM the author with any tips worth publishing, otherwise stick to [post moderated] and ‘player X’ comments on the Rumours thread on the messageboard.

The now almost-regular not-quite-weekly round-up of news not worth reporting, together with some olds we didn’t report first time through.

New assistant for Mullen
John Schofield has signed up for a plum job as coach at the Saddlers. Schofield will inevitably be subject to a whole contracts-worth of gopher gags as assistant to already-popular puppet Jimmy ‘Gordon” Mullen - here’s hoping John and Jimmy’s partnership will be as great as Phil and Gordon’s was. Lately of Lincoln and Scunthorpe, Schofield has all the right badges, and a heap of attitude to bring to the club, and we trust he’ll be able to at least repeat the success that kept Lincoln respectably in the second division for a number of seasons.

Geddes update
Apparently the clubs we beat off for Geddes’ signature were Bolton, Blackburn and Newcastle. Mullen advises that Sean was persuaded to sign for The Saddlers as he’d have a great chance of rising to the first team with Walsall, given our attitude to developing youth talent and blooding youngsters early. This’ll be the same attitude evident in Bonser’s “let the public own the stadium” calls based on past experience. We think Sean probably signed because he was told it’s grim up North and it’s a bit far to commute to see his parents.

Kids for a quid!
Yup - it’s kids for a quid again, and this time it won’t devalue your season ticket, as it’s at the Boldmere St. Michaels match on July 30th at their gaffe. Always a great occasion, it’ll now be even more worth turning up to see 3 or 4 youngsters and 18 trialists take on the might of The Mikes. Roll up prior to 7.30 and enjoy a decent pint, some good company and maybe a bit of football.

Transfer Rumours
1 Gowling ain’t signing
2 er…
3 that’s it
Obviously Jimmy and The Tan are playing all their cards close to their chest as we prepare our squad for next season. A decade back we’d not signed anyone by this time either, so don’t worry just yet. Please.

The Saddlers open the new season away at Yeovil. First league action at the Bescot sees the visit of Scunthorpe on August 16th. Sandwiched between the two is a Carling Cup first round clash at home to Darlington on Tuesday August 12th.

There’s a Boxing Day clash at home to Stockport to look forward to, a New Year trip to Carlisle on January 3rd - and the Leeds games are 25th October away and 31st January at home respectively. In an echo of a previous promotion season, a final day home encounter with Oldham is in prospect on May 2nd.

Full fixtures available from the BBC website - who this morning beat the official site by a clear couple of minutes to publishing the fixtures first.

The ill-timed collection of dross that generally precedes a better story by a matter of hours is back, with it’s round-up of rubbish from around the traps.

2008/09 Season Fixtures
Fixtures are due out 10.00am Monday 16 June (UK time). Please, DO NOT POST THESE ON THE SITE! The chaps at league HQ get very grumpy over copyright issues for some reason, and we don’t want to pay a fee to put their little list on our site. You can see them in lots of places - BBC will probably put them up quite quickly. David Thompson of the Football League is the man to blame when we have to travel to the other end of the country on midweek and bank holiday fixtures.

Super Sub Season
Under new rules, Walsall will be able to name seven subs on the bench for forthcoming FA and Carling Cup fixtures. Whilst still being allowed to use only three in a game, this makes for greater permutations from the sidelines. Given our recent signing activity, whether we’ll be able to field a squad of 18 players by August 11 is still a matter of conjecture.

Darlo in the Carlo
Darlington are the Carling Cup visitors who’ll have to contend with our seven super subs when we play them at (still) the Banks’s Stadium in the week commencing August 11. That’ll probably be August 12 then, as we can’t imagine this fixture bothering the live schedules. We’ve never met The Loids in the competition before, but haven’t lost at home to them since 1922, meaning an 86 year-old record is up for grabs. Wolves and Coventry also drew minnows, so no big money-spinner ties for the Midland teams.

Walsall ‘Til I Die
A reminder to send in your 200-300 word stories for possible inclusion in the above-titled new book, published in connection with the Club, the Supporters’ Trust and the National Literacy Trust. Any memory or tale of your trials, tribulations, joys and laughter following Walsall is sought. Entries please to david@legendspublishing.net referencing Walsall ‘Til I Die in the subject line. If you know any old codgers with no internet, now’s the time to tap their brain and submit on their behalf, as we imagine there’ll already be 15,000 entries discussing Cardiff. Deadline for copy is June 30.

Transfer Rumours
Even the Express and Dingle agrees - no new rumours since last time, when we were thought to be chasing Elding (no chance) and Gowling (some chance). Still, they get their news from here, so maybe it’s time to start thinking of some new names for the UTS transfer rumours thread.

That’s all for now - and publication of this collection means bigger news MUST be just around the corner!

The Express and Dingle has revealed today that we have been holding talks with Bournemouth centre half Josh Gowling.

Well, whoopee-doo, weren’t they reading upthesaddlers.com and their own paper last week?

Jimmy Mullen has said that the 6 foot 3 inch former Albion trainee isn’t the only centre half we have been looking at, which should come as no surprise, as we only have Anthony Gerrard and Manny Smith with any real first team experience.

Upthesaddlers is delighted to announce a new site sponsor for the 2008-2009 season. For our special 10th anniversary season, I C Shipping are sponsoring the website taking over from S R Print Management who we thank for their support.

I C Shipping specialises in international freight forwarding by land, sea or air, with offices in Wednesbury and Derby. For more information see website: www.icshipping.com

Owner/Managing Director of I C Shipping, Ian Astbury (Asps to board users) said “UTS offers Walsall fans an independent platform to express their opinions and get the latest news. It is also a great portal for fans who can’t get to the matches. We are delighted to sponsor the site for the challenging season ahead.”