Deadline Day Dealings - A Review

The most over-hyped day of the English football calendar came around again yesterday with the conclusion of the summer transfer window for British clubs. Here's C's take on the day and some of the moves...

Firstly, what a pleasure it was to see that nobody cared about Chelsea in the not-so-super cup (terrific performance by them I hasten to add) was completely stolen by the likes of the mighty QPR making last minute signings. Having said that, I tuned in to Sky Sports News from about 8 through til 11 - yes, I switched off in spite of Natalie Sawyer's pleas for me to stay tuned after the window slammed shut for news of the very last minute deals. Whilst Jim White was over-hyping the activity as always and mildly entertaining, the insights of Iain Dowie and particularly Dave Bassett (who couldn't resist an argument about how he hates it when people say that someone gives 110% just so that he could show his face on the screen for a little longer) drove me so far up the wall that I found myself changing the channel as soon as the ticker reached 0. Sky Sports obviously had to dust off their phone book from ten years ago to find two vaguely memorable names on a Friday night to sit in the studio and add their two-penneth when filling the time between transfer news in Dowie and Bassett. 

There were several high profile moves in the Premier League on deadline day, here's my thoughts on a few that will have raised Jose Bosingwa's eyebrow:

Andy Carroll, Liverpool - West Ham, season long loan

The £35 million flop has surely found himself a home as the focal point of Sam Allardyce's 'battering ram FC'. Carroll is perfect for the kind of football being practised in East London aerospace and has even managed to swindle guaranteed first team football if he is fit and extra money for nights out on the town with his pal Kevin Nolan out of it. I don't think Carroll could have realistically ended up anywhere else in the Premier League and I'm sure he'll be delighted with the move. I also reckon he'll thrive at West Ham, rediscover his scoring touch and move there permanently. Quite what this means for the seemingly unlovable Carlton Cole though I do not know...

Dimitar Berbatov, Man Utd - Fulham, £4 million

The man who cost United £30.75 million and actually has a very good scoring record is reunited with his old chum Martin Jol. At the end of the day that, along with the lure of the bright lights of London once again, proved good enough reasons for him to turn down Italian offers to move to the Cottagers. This looks like very very good business to me, and is arguably the stand out value for money signing of the summer. You just can't come by proven strikers in the Premier League for £4 million, it just doesn't happen - except in this case, of course! Having said that, you can expect he's their biggest earner and been paid a hefty signing on fee as a sweetener to reel him in. I just wonder whether he and Petric can hit it off, or indeed whether they'll get the service from a somewhat decimated Fulham midfield.

Charlie Adam, Liverpool - Stoke, £5 million

This seems a match made in heaven for an aggressive player disliked with many plans that can deliver dangerous free kicks both directly and indirectly. Adam has shown throughout his Liverpool career that he has what it takes to be the Stoke type and I'm expecting a lot of Adam assists for Crouch, Walters and co. Wingers didn't seem to have the impact that Stoke had hoped for last year so it makes sense that they go for someone in the middle of the park that can involve the wingers in the game more whilst retaining the option to hoof it forwards directly too. They'll be a lot more threatening going forward now with the addition of Adam than they were against Arsenal last weekend.

Maicon, Inter Milan - Man City, undisclosed fee

This was a bit of a surprise signing really, given how he got a roasting in his own back yard by Gareth Bale in the Champions League and has looked suspect on a few other occasions. He is, however, a player known for the spectacular in an attacking sense and is renowned for maraudering forward down the right, providing assists and scoring some truly memorable goals. I can remember an unbelievable strike against arch rivals AC at the back end of last season. It's clear to me that Mancini has brought in a favourite from his time as manager at Inter here and you have to feel for Micah Richards, who hasn't been involved so far for Citeh this season and will be wondering what he's done wrong.

Clint Dempsey, Fulham - Spurs, £6 million

Daniel Levy's done it again! £6 million for an attacking midfielder/striker that scored 17 Premier League goals last season and 12 the season before is unbelievably good business. Dempsey just seemed to pop up everywhere in the opposition's half in the past two seasons and I think he'll fit well in an attack-minded Spurs side. The real surprise was that he didn't become the flagship American signing for the Liverpool owners, as was widely expected. Needless to say though that Tottenham are once again an embarrassment of riches in midfield - surely some of them are going to have to be moved on in January.

Yossi Benayoun, Chelsea - West Ham, season long loan

Five years after departing for Liverpool, the thirty-two year old is back at Upton Park where he previously enjoyed a hugely successful spell before. West Ham looked as though they were short of attacking players behind the strikers so this was a logical move and I've no doubt their fans are delighted about the returning Israeli. I can't see a permanent deal coming out of this one though: Sky Sports were very keen to tell us he earns £92,000 per week which is quite astonishing for a player of his calibre, but such is the life Chelsea players are treated to by Roman 'I like it = I buy it' Abramovich. This deal is being heavily subsidised by Stamford Bridge, presumably because there were no takers for the player as nobody would dream of matching his current contract.

Gaston Ramirez, Bologna - Southampton, £12 million

21-year old Uruguayan Gaston Ramirez's early promise has earned him a big money move to the Premier League... however few could have predicted that it would be to Southampton! This seems a bizarre move for a player held in such high regard in Italy. Still, it is something of a coup for Nigel Adkins even if it is slightly expensive if it doesn't work out and he'll be hoping the form shown in Italy can translate to form in the Premier League, something several South American players have struggled to do over the years following transfers.

Stephane Mbia, Marseilles - QPR, undisclosed fee 

No element of surprise about this deal: This was a move that had been in the pipeline for about a week or so but it was eventually announced with just 10 minutes to spare, with the player having spent three or four hours having a medical - why can't QPR do things as quickly as everyone else can?! Still, I'm pleased it went through in the end and that Barton is on someone else's books (for now at least). Mbia is very highly rated by connoisseurs of Ligue 1 and seems equally adept in midfield as at centre back. It is the latter where I expect his services will be deployed for Rangers and boy did we need someone with a more physical and pacy presence than either Scooby Doo or Clint Hill!!! Bienvenue Stephane!

Notable departures from Premier League football include Michael Essien (to Real Madrid), De Jong (to AC Milan, perfect for dull defensive minded football), Van der Vaart (to Hamburg) and Nicklas Bendtner (to Juventus). On the subject of Bendtner, he's only classed as a 'notable departure' because his agent asked me to say he was. Also Jay Spearing has found his level at last, going on loan to Bolton for the season after being embarrassingly out of depth last season.

One thing's for certain, there were some great signings by most clubs. Not just today, but all Summer. The Premier League continues to dominate European football by attracting the very best and the smaller teams are becoming more and more competitive with some of the big fish, making the league less and less predictable and our weekend previews more and more difficult.

Enjoy what promises to be another exciting weekend in the best league in the world.
C

Week Three Preview, Just For You

Come Saturday the transfer window dust should have settled and we’ll be left with the always calm matchdays. At the time of writing this post it is Thursday evening and not all transfers will have gone through so just to put a disclaimer in and so you don’t question our sanity if we haven’t covered some big transfers you might have expected in this preview the reason is we’re coming to you from the past! In fact, we’re going to break with all expectation and won’t really be mentioning transfers that much since we’re going to cover all the major stories coming from this past ‘Deadline Day Week’ (patent pending so keep your mits off our phrase Jim White).

This weekend will obviously be interesting to see the debuts of a number of players and also the effect that big name signings have on a team. Will Tottenham players be affected by the loss of Luka Modric and the subsequent arrival of Moussa Dembele? Will West Ham’s strikers be motivated to keep their place ahead of the apparently imminent signing of Andy Carroll on loan or will it peeve some players off? These are all really interesting sideshows to the games and regardless of whether some of the bigger signings are playing I’m sure teams like Fulham and Sunderland might find their fans have been inspired by their marquee signings of Dimitar Berbatov and Adam Johnson respectively. Both of whom are really good signings for these teams I’d venture to add. But we will see anyway won’t we...

So – now to preview some of the weekend’s action:

WBA v Everton - Saturday afternoon sees two of the season’s surprise packages so far meeting at the Hawthorns. Before you cry out Everton fans I mean it’s a surprise you’ve started so well (I don’t know if you knew this but you haven’t really started the season well in most of David Moyes’ reign) not that your squad is excellent – we already knew that. West Brom have also started a lot better than anyone could have predicted other than Frank Skinner and Adrian Chiles. Last weekend’s last gasp draw at White Hart Lane was a terrific result for the Baggies and Romelu Lukaku looks like a really good loan signing. He has come on as an impact sub for both his games so far granted, but he really does look a handful. He has got Drogba-like presence up front and is a man mountain but he has a really good turn of pace. I was surprised Chelsea didn’t keep him actually to provide an alternative to Torres but their loss is West Brom’s gain. Everton played excellent football against Aston Villa and up front they look really dangerous. It’s hard to see past the Toffees for this one, but I have a strange feeling the Baggies might nick a draw again, keeping both sides undefeated.

Prediction: WBA 1-1 Everton

Man City v QPR – Saturday evening sees the return of the game which probably everyone outside of the red half of Manchester (including me) saw as one of the best of all time from May last year (anytime I hear “AGUEROOOOO” I still feel queasy). Citeh’s defence has actually looked unstable this season, in stark contrast to last year. I am a bit sceptical about Mancini’s lineup on Sunday at Anfield though and to be honest I think the inclusion of Kolo the Klown over Joleon Lescott had to be a gesture to Brian Marwood to show him just how thin City’s defence is and their need for another CB to fill the gap if either Kompany or Lescott get injured. It seems Mancini’s got his wish this week with Matija Nastasic close to signing from Fiorentina with the added bonus of Stefan Savic going in the opposite direction to boot! They’ve also added Scott Sinclair to effectively replace Adam Johnson on the bench as well so his pockets will be happy at least even if there doesn’t appear to be any other reason for that move. QPR have been incredibly active in the transfer window this summer and this week is no different, with Julio Cesar arriving from Internazionale so far. This is a really astounding move considering Cesar was a Champions League winner just over 2 years ago whilst Rangers were in the Championship. Granted Cesar’s form has dipped since then but he is a very good goalkeeper and was Inter’s number one just last season. Goodness knows what was going through Rob Green’s head when Cesar was signed though and it’s difficult to imagine Green will be the first choice for much longer at all. Unfortunately for C though I think Rangers squad still needs to gel and I can only see a routine win for Citeh here even though it pains me.

Prediction: Citeh 3-1 QPR

Liverpool v Arsenal – This looks like being the stand out game of the weekend and it is a meeting between two sides who could really do with a morale boosting victory to really get their season going. Last week’s draw against the champions was much needed for Liverpool and they looked like a side beginning to get to grips with Brendan Rodgers’ style and the result will help their belief and inspire them to integrate more fully into the system. Raheem Sterling looked really bright against Citeh and his emergence should see him ahead of Stewart Downing in the pecking order for a long time to come in theory. The arrival of Nuri Sahin is actually quite interesting since Joe Allen produced a man of the match performance and Jonjo Shelvey performed really well for a man thrown into the deep end and having to come on for the injured (and unlucky) Lucas after 5 minutes. It will be interesting to see if Rodgers plumps for Sahin ahead of Shelvey (I can’t believe he’d drop Allen after last week) or sticks with the same midfield that kept Citeh to such a bare minimum of chances really. Likewise it’ll be interesting to see how Arsenal do this week. 0 goals scored and 0 goals conceded is hardly the start Arsene will have dreamed of, but the fact is they haven’t conceded and they have played against 2 teams who have effectively parked the bus against them. In this game it really doesn’t seem like Liverpool will do that and that could be to Arsenal’s advantage. Is this the game that Giroud or Podolski or Cazorla finally click? I think it could be and I’m sticking my neck out to say I can see another score draw here.

Prediction: Liverpool 2-2 Arsenal

Elsewhere this weekend, Man Utd take on Southampton at what should actually be a packed St Mary’s this time (as opposed to my very wrong prediction about this last week). Crewe take on a Coventry team in disarray after manager Andy Thorn was sacked this week, and they will be hoping that there is a delayed reaction to this.

Finally, it’s a massive game for Union Berlin on Monday night as they host their city rivals Hertha BSC in what will be an electric atmosphere at the Alten Forsterei!

Enjoy the weekend and deadline day everyone!

C&J