September 2, a total of £140m was spent on deadline day in England, sending total outlays during the summer transfer window to £630m, a new record. The Premier league might have lost its best player to Real Madrid in a world record €100m but it wasn’t short of fireworks on deadline day.
THE STEADY– Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham
City had done their business early with spending over a £100m on Fernandinho, Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas. The needed an additional center back and got their primary target Martin Demichelis from Malaga for £4.2m, a player who was a free agent in July. Perhaps money doesn’t buy common sense after all.
Chelsea are clearly a team built for a different manager (See: Bayern Munich) but Mourinho came in and did his business early. Apart from a public failure of acquiring Rooney, rest of the business was well conducted. The hijacking of the Willian move is mystifying at first with the amount of playmakers they have, but attempts to sell Juan Mata on deadline cleared the picture. As many as 12 bids were rejected for the Chelsea Player of The Year and negotiations with loaded PSG went down to the wire.
Liverpool finalized deals for Sakho and Llori for a combined fee of £22m. This should cover up the remaining blotches in an impressively assembled squad. Top of the league, 3 clean sheets and a solid transfer window, it’s almost as if Andy ‘His Ponytail Cost £50m’ Carroll never happened.
Tottenham have given a masterclass on how to manage the sale of a superstar. Daniel Levy delayed the Bale transfer until the last moment as it allowed him to conduct his business without pressure and wouldn’t allow rivals to benefit from a resulting Real Madrid fire sale. An impressive summer haul highlighted by Lamela, Soldado, Eriksen, Paulinho resulted in an outlay of £107m.
What Levy needs to do is to end the ‘Partnership Agreement” with Real Madrid.
Gary Neville said it best:
Partnership agreement. How’s that gonna work?
RM- I want Modric
Spurs- Yes ok
RM- I want Bale
Spurs Yes, Ok
Spurs – I want Ozil
RM – No
Spurs – Ok then
THE UNPROFESSIONAL – Manchester United
In their desperation to sign a creative midfielder (Especially of Spanish descent) new transfer guru Ed Norwood led them to the doors of Athletico Bilbao on deadline day, where three impostors, yes IMPOSTORS! Acted as representatives of Manchester United and tried to hammer out a deal for Ander Herrera. Perhaps it’s time to call Scholes again?
After comically failing in the very public pursuit of Cesc Fabregas and Leighton Baines, United finally got their midfield man, their savior, Marrouane Fellaini for £27.5m on deadline day. Fellaini had a release clause of £23m in his contract till 31st July. Manchester United paid £4.5 MORE than his release clause.Then they tried to sign an unnecessary Fabio Coentrao late on deadline day and failed to complete the required paperwork in time. A catastrophic window in many ways
In Moyes We might trust, but I wouldn’t trust Norwood with my cat let alone the biggest club in the world.
THE SENSATIONAL – Arsenal
Wenger had been trolling the world saying he’ll only pay for ‘Super Quality’ and Arsenal fans were resigned to another disappointing day and mediocre season.But then Wenger completed unarguably the greatest signing for Arsenal since Dennis Bergkamp and made Mesut Ozil the most expensive German player of all time by nabbing the world class playmaker from Real Madrid for an eye-watering £42.5m.
Not bad for an austere club.
Arsenal might not have needed a playmaker as they had loads of great ones, but holy mother its MESUT OZIL!
The highest assist maker in Europe since he joined Real Madrid in 2010, the poster boy for the new power generation of German football, and is now in the EPL at the Emirates.
THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE WINDOW THIS SEASON HAS TO BE THIS FACE!!
Arsene Wenger,you beautiful beautiful man.
Wilshere, Arteta,Cazorla, Rosicky, Podolski and Ozil in one team…It’s the stuff of football porn.