Good deadline day, bad deadline day.. a game not worth playing in Scotland because we don’t seem to bother anymore.
GOODLiverpool No open letters to the Kop explaining away a dry deadline day needed this year. Mamadou Sakho and Tiago Llori are unproven in England and Victor Moses will have to show he isn’t a Stewart Downing type (looks like a world-beater at a small club but can’t cope with the pressure of a big one). But given the Coutinho and Sturridge buys, there’s every reason to suspect that Brendan Rodgers has an eye for a player in the mid-price range where everyone is looking for a bargain. It’s not scientific, but I’d imagine his transfer market success ratio is probably about two out of three, which any manager would be happy with.
Oh, and Suarez is staying. Disappointing for “there’s no man bigger than the club” football traditionalists but heartening for the team and their top four aspirations.
Aston Villa Like Manuel Pellegrini, Paul Lambert was one of those wise souls who got himself busy a couple of months ago. Had to fight off some late Arsenal interest in Christian Benteke though, it is understood. Keeping his best player at Villa Park amounts to a successful window on its own for Lambert.
Everton Monday could have turned out to be a squad-diminishing day for Roberto Martinez. Instead, he looks to have emerged from it with it enhanced. Getting Manchester United to pay £4m more for Marouane Fellaini than they would have had to a couple of months ago when his release clause was still active was an example of transfer window brinksmanship that paid off (and a clumsy manoeuvre from United see below).
James McCarthy is a more than adequate and cheaper replacement. Gareth Barry should have two or three years left in him as a top level holding midfielder, and getting a proven Premier League goalscorer like Romelu Lukaku as his other season-long loan was a coup. Martinez will have to use his finest man management skills on Leighton Baines though. Don’t expect him to be too thrilled to still be at Goodison.
Tottenham (probably) Daniel Levy couldn’t have squeezed any more out of Real Madrid. Quantity is never a good substitute for quality but surely at least three of the seven men Spurs have brought in with the Bale money won’t turn out to be duds.
Arsenal (possibly) Mesut Ozil is a tremendous player. Ask any United fan whether they’d rather have got the German or Fellaini and I think you would see the sort of majority that Alex Salmond could only dream of in a year’s time. Was another number 10 type midfielder/forward really what they needed though. If nothing else, Arsene Wenger has at last shown he’s willing to spend with the big boys, which will keep the fans and media critics off his back for a couple of months.BADSunderland It’s not so much a squad Paulo di Canio has assembled as a group of strangers, albeit a lot of ones who will speak Italian. They looked disjointed, disunited and relegation-doomed on Saturday night after their defeat by Crystal palace and didn’t appear any different on Tuesday morning. Fabio Borini will have to show a lot more than he has at Anfield to help stop this ship from sinking.
Newcastle United Joe Kinnear claimed that his contact book allowed him to speak to every football manager in the country. Well, they weren’t picking up on Monday. This has been a good window for shrewd directors of football. Kinnear isn’t a shrewd director of football. Will have the chance to work on his pronunciation of Yohan Cabaye (Kebab) however, as he’s still at the club.
Manchester United United fans expecting Ronaldo and ending up with Fellaini are now fearing a scrap for fourth place rather than a title defence on the back of a very un-Manchester United like transfer window. Hard to know whether to blame the new chief exec, the new manager or both. Paid over the odds for Fellaini, who is good, sometimes very good, but never world class.
Also made an amateurish hash of their pursuit of Fabio Coentrao and Ander Herrera. It never used to be like this. Don’t panic though, according to David Moyes they were fantastic at Anfield. And Carlton Cole is still a free agent I gather…