Yesterday we gave our promotion dreams a huge boost by signing Ollie Hotchkiss on a permanent deal after DH managed to persuade Leeds to release him. Ollie has made a huge impact in his time on loan from Leeds and it was enough for DH to drive up to Leeds himself just to secure the attacking midfielders signature.

Ollie who was born in Sunderland, has only ever played for Leeds United so it is testament to what is happening here for him to leave and sign up with us. I am very confident that Ollie will do very very well here and I can’t wait to see a partnership of Nix and Ollie in the centre of midfield. Phoaaaar!

With Challinor signing earlier in the week and now Ollie, I think it is the end of Steven Isteads Mansfield Town career. Istead was never really given a run of games to prove himself but with the squad size we have it was always apparent that he would just be used here and there.

Hopefully we can sign a few more quality players this month and really have a good go at promotion. With Oxford, Stevenage and York all going very well in the top 3 places it’s going to be a battle between us and 5 or 6 other teams for the last two spots. With a few more quality additions I think we will have enough in the locker to do it.

Watch Ollie’s brilliant freekick against Gateshead here.