It’s that moment many of us dreaded. Neil Warnock has called for fans to trust him throughout the summer, but with the traditional “Beyond Thunderdome” transfer model being played out so far, fans could be forgiven for having misgivings.

Andy Lonergan was rumoured yesterday to have had a medical at Bolton, after rejecting interest from East Anglia. Today he’s being unveiled by Wanderers as Jussi Jääskeläinen’s replacement to provide cover to current first choice Adam Bogdan. Although Lonergan is an increasingly standard “undisclosed” fee, that fee is rumoured by YEP to be around £250k.

Leeds’ incomings have so far been almost entirely funded by outgoings. The end of five contracts this summer, including some surprisingly well paid, helped to pay for Leeds’ flagship signing Jason Pearce, and the Bosman signings of Adam Drury and Paul Green. So far so good for Leeds fans. But since then talented rookie Adam Clayton had to make way for the signing of Paddy Kenny for around £500k, while Andy Lonergan (well thought of by both Owen Coyle and David Moyes) has been flogged at what is rumoured to be a surprisingly low fee of around £200-300k. I bet fans won’t mind Lonergan leaving for instantaneous cult-hero Rodolph Austin, but what happens as the takeover goes on?

We’re in mid-July now, with the transfer market changing up the gears rapidly, and the quality signings are beginning to move. If we believe the rumours, Lee Peltier (a talented full-back don’t get me wrong) has risen from a mooted £250k value to a £750k value because of interest from Simon Grayson and the heavy loss made on one-time Leeds target Matt Mills, Luke Chambers has opted for Ipswich after all, Simon Cox is bound to rise in value as too newly demoted teams on parachute payments hunt him, and if Richard Keogh goes to another club, a similar target will likely cost significantly more.

Don’t get me wrong, Neil Warnock’s done a great job so far. Personally I’ve not felt as much confidence in the first four signings of the summer for years. But at the same time, we’re now being linked with losing arguably our two best players of last season. With Lonergan and Clayton gone at what some would argue a knock-down rate, Ross McCormack is sounding likely to leave Leeds despite Warnock enthusing his ability to change games. Possibly the club’s top scorer was understandably cautious about signing on for an “Ole Gunnar Solskjær” role, possibly he is a greedy footballer as the cliche goes, or possibly we need to sell him to sign other targets. Possibly a mix or all of these?

But Sky Sports’ confirmation that their infamous “sources” had heard of two Norwich bids for Robert Snodgrass within a week has put the frighteners on some fans. Snodgrass won points for the club on his own last year, while his statement that if he stopped thinking he could win games he’d “hang up his boots” was a rare display of the kind of attitude Leeds has expected from its players for decades. This is the club of Billy Bremner and David Batty, but at times recently it’s looked anything but. Neil Warnock is an experienced and ruthless manager, and fans are worried even Robert Snodgrass might be flogged in favour of an older, grizzly, combatant (something Snodgrass has the potential to be if he lacked that skillful dimension in his game that he’s so famous for).

But a bid doesn’t mean anything more than a bid. Leeds received several bids for Snodgrass last season according to the Scot himself, and this season with serial-Leeds-scavenger Paul Lambert at Villa, and Chris Hughton continuing to put in bids on behalf of Norwich, it seems to be no different. But Neil Warnock did say earlier this summer that Snoddy’s isn’t the same sign-or-leave situation as the other players. In fact, he almost guaranteed we would have our captain until the January window at least. With the capture of Kenny, Pearce, Drury, Green and Rodolph Austin in exchange for Andy Lonergan and Adam Clayton, Neil Warnock’s major surgery hasn’t gone too badly so far. For those of us who rate McCormack very highly, his impending departure will be a sore blow but there’s no evidence Snodgrass will follow, and based on the evidence so far it looks likely we’ll get a good quality replacement for Ross, and maybe get another in on that money too.

And that’s before any small cash injections to be had from the tortuously slow takeover bid.