IMAGINE Nicola Cortese on Twitter asking Saints fans who he should sign during the current transfer window.

Then imagine Mauricio Pochettino retweeting fans’ messages a few days later regarding a signing!

That’s exactly what has happened at League 1 club Crawley Town.

Crawley boss John Gregory is one of the only managers in the Football League – along with Oldham’s Lee Johnson – who is on Twitter – and now he has been joined by chairman Dave Pottinger.

Pottinger took to the site last week to canvass opinion among the club’s supporters as to who they would most like Reds to sign this month.

The answer was Matt Tubbs and, hey presto, Bournemouth’s former Salisbury striker signed on loan on Monday, returning to the club he helped fire to promotion from the Conference in 2010/11 as well as to the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Pottinger admits the vote did not sway Gregory’s decision to sign Tubbs but hasn’t ruled out doing something similar in the future.

Pottinger said: “It was just a fishing line really, everyone knows we needed to enhance the side and goals have been a problem.

“We have scouts and an experienced manager in John Gregory but we have 20,000-odd fans so why not ask them?

“A lot of supporters are treated with disrespect but they know their football.

“I might do it again, ask them to go down to the Conference North and find us a gem.

“I’ll stop short of asking them to pick the team, though. I don’t think John Gregory would be so keen on that!”

Chairmen and managers engaging with fans can never be a bad thing but Crawley's media team may need to try to keep a tighter rein on Gregory’s use of Twitter.

Reds had planned a big announcement of the signing of Tubbs on Monday morning but Gregory let the cat out of the bag the previous day when he retweeted messages from fans about the striker’s return to Sussex!