28 Days Later

The January Transfer Dealings of EPL Clubs in 2011

Common consent, and in fact common sense, recognises that it can be too early to review a Radiohead album; time is needed to assess whether it will be a grower, or if the name the ‘The King of Limbs’ will be more likely to be associated with Paulo Wanchope than with another of their all-time great albums. Similarly, after a transfer window in which English Premier League clubs spent over £215m, a January record, it is now perhaps time to look at how things have taken shape, a month after the window closed and the dust has settled.

And there are few places in football where more dust has settled than the Arsenal trophy cabinet in recent years, yet once again they failed to strengthen their squad. For the second successive window they were linked to string of goalkeepers, all of whom they have failed to capture; Mark Schwarzer was the closest to being signed last August until slipping out of Arsene Wenger’s grasp, like a ball in the hands of Almunia/Fabianski/Sczczesney (delete where applicable).

In contrast, Liverpool were particularly active with the movement of their first-team squad, trading players like a salesman who has fallen on hard times desperately swaps business cards in the last hours of the only networking event on the horizon until the end of May. Their hand was forced when Chelsea finally came in for Fernando Torres in the last third of the window, with the deal only being completed on deadline day. Chelsea apparently waited before going in for Torres because they didn’t want to spark a bidding war, in the unlikely event that anyone else would pay over £50m for someone who has looked like he has got out of the wrong side of bed everyday for over a year.

Torres’ prolonged slump has not just been evident in form and statistics, but is also visible simply by just watching him – a perfect example of this was Spain’s opening game in the World Cup, when within minutes of him being introduced it was clear to the trained eye he was not at the races. With the prospect of missing out on Champions League qualification next season Romam Abromovich has gambled on Torres recapturing his form of old, and it may yet happen, but the first 28 days has shown it can’t simply be magically turned back on with a change of shirt colour.

The biggest knock-on effect of the Torres signing was of course the going rate of Andy Carroll rising faster in value than the rare 12” vinyl copy of Day V Lately’s ‘Pulse & Thunder’ some DJ once bought on a record stall. With Carroll still injured, the thought that the offer was too good to refuse for Newcastle remains. Assuming they don’t get relegated (which they shouldn’t do after the solid start Chris Hughton gave them in a league where there are plenty of teams struggling), the Carroll transfer will be, like Torres, another good deal for the selling club.

Of the high value signings in the window, Edin Dzeco, David Luiz and Luis Suarez look to be the better players, while the price of Darren Bent didn’t seem as inflated as first thought after Chelsea and Liverpool got over excited on the last day. The best value of the lower fees could be Steven Pienaar to Spurs, while arguably the best business of all has been done either by clubs who have made astute loan signings, or those who have held on to players.

Aston Villa got Kyle Walker on loan for the rest of the season from Spurs, after he previously excelled at QPR, and another Spurs loan player, Jamie O’Hara, has already made an impact at Wolves. And as good a loan signing as any is Daniel Sturridge, who has scored in all the four league games he has played for Bolton since Chelsea let him go for the rest of the season to make way in their squad for Torres. Oh, the irony.

In contrast to Torres there is no doubting the confident state of Sturridge’s mind; in his opening press conference for Bolton he suggested that Drogba and Anelka were reaching the end of their careers, and he would be Torres’ striking partner with Chelsea next season. It could be that he may be better of staying within a stable and seemingly progressive set-up at Bolton instead, rather then back to the mad-house at Cobham.

Some players leaving the Premier League on loan are also showing signs of prospering, with Wayne Routledge having another good spell at QPR following a loan from Newcastle; Kyle Bartley is playing every week both domestically and in Europe for Glasgow Rangers, and Giovanni Dos Santos getting a fair run out at Racing Santander.

But Blackpool warding of offers for Charlie Adam, West Ham holding on to Scott Parker, and Everton keeping Phil Neville, may prove to be the best bit of business for Premier League clubs in the whole window.

Blackpool have a whole squad of players who now play the passing and moving game, but Adam is by far their best player and instrumental in their pattern of play. They were right to reject laughable offers from Aston Villa and Liverpool in particular. He nearly went to Spurs before the window shut, but keeping Adam is the best opportunity Blackpool have off staying up. Parker is even more vital to West Ham: he makes interceptions, tackles, has great passing ability, a good footballing brain (as demonstrated in his recent England appearance), and is now apparently even giving team talks.

West Ham brought in a few players as well as keeping Parker, signing Demba Ba, who has hit the ground running (having failed a medical at Stoke), and also getting in Robbie Keane on loan. Keane’s agent is someone who, despite the global economic problems of recent years, knows there is always work for him every transfer window. Keane may not have been the same player he was before he made the fateful decision to go to Liverpool, but after scoring on his debut for West Ham could well have made a positive difference to them if he had a run of games, which an injury has now prevented.

While Spurs shipped Keane out for the third time since 2008, they were after Phil Neville, but miscalculated Everton would let a valuable player go on the cheap just because of his age and the financial pressures they are under. Neville would have been a fantastic signing for Tottenham, a full-back who can defend properly on either side, is both footed, comfortable on the ball and also able to play the holding role in central midfield. He also has the ability to man-mark players, and the bottle to score decisive kicks in penalty shoot-outs – attributes that could be particularly useful in the knock out stages of the Champions League. And of course, like Parker, Neville is a leader.

In fact the lack of activity at Tottenham was particularly unusual. After the flurry of activity at Tottenham’s training ground at the start of the window, when David Beckham came to train, there was little until the penultimate evening, when it emerged there were multi-million bids going in for most top strikers in Spain that weren’t cup-tied in the Champions League. The offers were in-keeping with the ambition of the club, but hard to complete in January; as long as Tottenham are in the Champions League again next season, it should be easier to do business in the summer.

There is little doubt that the perceived benefit of having a window – so clubs could work with squad they have, and not making signings throughout the season as fluctuations of form and pressures from fans dictate – is being outweighed by the negative consequences of over-inflated prices, where the power of the agent is further increased.

The window is perhaps more valued by Sky Sports News (SSN) than clubs, with their first ticking clock starting sometime around the Christmas period waiting for the window to open. There was no “two phones” Andy Burton at the death this time, suspended for his unwitting part in the downfall of Andy Gray, for which he deserves a medal rather than castigation. There was still plenty going on in the final evening this year without him though, but throughout January SSN insisted on wasting the ability of good journalists, forcing them to play with a massive Sky touch screen, when, as Dhamarsh Seth showed with his persistent and intelligent questioning on Ashley Cole to the clear discomfort of Carlo Ancoletti at today’s Chelsea press conference, their skills lie elsewhere.

As well as Sky Sport News and football agents, the other beneficiary of the transfer window can be players, but usually at the expense of their existing club. The biggest transfer of the January window would have been Wayne Rooney going across Manchester from United to City, but despite having thought about it enough to affect his form since his return from injury last season, Rooney’s supposed disenchantment with United’s lack of investment in the squad was finally dispelled by men in balaclavas coupled with United investing a few extra grand a week in his pay packet instead.

However spectacular Rooney’s winning goal was against City earlier this month, it is unlikely to top the significance of Birmingham’s loan signing Obafemi Martins, who yesterday scored that goal that put Birmingham City into Europe, winning their first trophy since 1963 and at the same time making a lot of people who wanted Arsenal to lose very, very happy. And for that, he is the signing of the January Transfer window so far.