People, me included, often saw the January transfer window as a waste of time, maybe sign in a small player or two to cover up injuries but that was about it. Nothing exciting ever happened. Jose Mourinho even once said he doesn't even count it as a transfer window. But all that changed today in England. I even lost count how many times the British record transfer was broken (none if you count exits though, Cristiano Ronaldo still holds that).
When Edin Djeko and Darren Bent signed for Manchester City and Aston Villa, everyone was already surprised at a high spending window and thought this was it. Two big money moves were already huge considering that the previous big moves were Jose Reyes to Arsenal and Nicolas Anelka to Chelsea. Players continued to be linked (David Luiz to Chelsea, Luis Suarez to Liverpool, every striker in Europe to Spurs) and adding a third big money move to this window would have made it a historical one.
Then the unexpected happen. Chelsea's failed bid for Fernando Torres led to the spaniard handing in a transfer request - 4 days before the window closed shut. And then the drama began!
Few hours before Torres handed in a transfer request, Liverpool had tied up a club record deal with Ajax for Luis Suarez. A quiet weekend on the transfer front turned out to be the calm before the storm in what can only be described as the most historic winter deadline day ever!
Fernando Torres was keen to leave, and for the first time in a few years, Roman Abramovich was keen to spend. Having lost the deal to sign brazilian defender David Luiz just a couple of days ago, Chelsea were in for one hell of a transfer deadline day.
Then came the day - January 31, 2011. Seems like everybody had left business for today. With the media confident Chelsea would make another move for Torres, the media braced themselves for a long day. While rumors had it that a £50million pound fee was agreed, Liverpool refused to confirm it till they found a replacement.
And then the news broke - Liverpool bid a staggering £35 million for Newcastle United's Andy Carrol (Darren Bent's fee doesn't sound so bad now does it), a player with just 6 months and 11 goals in the Premiership. With the Torres and Carrol moves resting in Mike Ashley's hand, the England under-21 striker was forced to hand in a transfer request. And then the merry go round began.
However record signings for both Chelsea and liverpool were not enough. The londoner's continued their chase for David Luiz, who's club Benfica suddenly seemed willing to do business again while the reds chased targets Charlie Adam and Aston Villa's Ashley Young.
Rumors of Sabastian Larsson to Manchester city and Diego Forlan and Gusippe Rossi to Tottemham also started to float around. But Adam, who's wanted to leave Blackpool all month, was leading the headlines. A rumor of a £10million bid from Manchester united seemed to make worry Liverpool and John Henry, and it looked like they wound spend the Torres money faster than it came in by offering £14million on their own.
Back to Luiz who seemed to be set to board Roman Abramovich's private plane to London was stopped last minute with Benfica claiming they were still considering chelsea's offer. High drama with less than 2 hours to go.
Charlie Adam hit the self district button when he had a war of words with his chairman who refused to let him leave the club as a result. On the topic of revenge, Tottenham, who were chasing Carrol all season, revealed that they had a last minute bid for Adam accepted but it was too little too late in terms of time and couldn't get the paperwork through.
David Luiz's stop turned out to be nothing more than an effort to beat the deadline with his contract signing and medical taking place in Lisbon rather than london.
So a deadline day with high drama - Chelsea & Liverpool signing their record signing, and the most expensive incoming transfer to an English club broken twice in a day! The last time it was broken in the same window was when Stan Collymore signed for Liverpool for a million pounds more than Dennis Bergkamp's move to Arsenal in June 1995.
A record amount of money spent for a January transfer window. No less than 6 player costing more than £20 million - a record that would make most summer windows proud! A day when Liverpool's website had so much traffic that they had to shut it down due to overload and come back with just a simple announcement's page. So who ever said that winter transfer markets are boring?
PS: Some of the other transfers concluded today include Michael Bradley to Aston Villa, Eidur Gudjohnsen to Fulham, Daniel Sturrage to Bolton and Stephen Ireland to Newcastle all on loan while Tuncay signed for Steve McLaren's Wolfberg.
Why bother having a window, we should just have a transfer day!
When Edin Djeko and Darren Bent signed for Manchester City and Aston Villa, everyone was already surprised at a high spending window and thought this was it. Two big money moves were already huge considering that the previous big moves were Jose Reyes to Arsenal and Nicolas Anelka to Chelsea. Players continued to be linked (David Luiz to Chelsea, Luis Suarez to Liverpool, every striker in Europe to Spurs) and adding a third big money move to this window would have made it a historical one.
Then the unexpected happen. Chelsea's failed bid for Fernando Torres led to the spaniard handing in a transfer request - 4 days before the window closed shut. And then the drama began!
Few hours before Torres handed in a transfer request, Liverpool had tied up a club record deal with Ajax for Luis Suarez. A quiet weekend on the transfer front turned out to be the calm before the storm in what can only be described as the most historic winter deadline day ever!
Fernando Torres was keen to leave, and for the first time in a few years, Roman Abramovich was keen to spend. Having lost the deal to sign brazilian defender David Luiz just a couple of days ago, Chelsea were in for one hell of a transfer deadline day.
Then came the day - January 31, 2011. Seems like everybody had left business for today. With the media confident Chelsea would make another move for Torres, the media braced themselves for a long day. While rumors had it that a £50million pound fee was agreed, Liverpool refused to confirm it till they found a replacement.
And then the news broke - Liverpool bid a staggering £35 million for Newcastle United's Andy Carrol (Darren Bent's fee doesn't sound so bad now does it), a player with just 6 months and 11 goals in the Premiership. With the Torres and Carrol moves resting in Mike Ashley's hand, the England under-21 striker was forced to hand in a transfer request. And then the merry go round began.
However record signings for both Chelsea and liverpool were not enough. The londoner's continued their chase for David Luiz, who's club Benfica suddenly seemed willing to do business again while the reds chased targets Charlie Adam and Aston Villa's Ashley Young.
Rumors of Sabastian Larsson to Manchester city and Diego Forlan and Gusippe Rossi to Tottemham also started to float around. But Adam, who's wanted to leave Blackpool all month, was leading the headlines. A rumor of a £10million bid from Manchester united seemed to make worry Liverpool and John Henry, and it looked like they wound spend the Torres money faster than it came in by offering £14million on their own.
Back to Luiz who seemed to be set to board Roman Abramovich's private plane to London was stopped last minute with Benfica claiming they were still considering chelsea's offer. High drama with less than 2 hours to go.
Charlie Adam hit the self district button when he had a war of words with his chairman who refused to let him leave the club as a result. On the topic of revenge, Tottenham, who were chasing Carrol all season, revealed that they had a last minute bid for Adam accepted but it was too little too late in terms of time and couldn't get the paperwork through.
David Luiz's stop turned out to be nothing more than an effort to beat the deadline with his contract signing and medical taking place in Lisbon rather than london.
So a deadline day with high drama - Chelsea & Liverpool signing their record signing, and the most expensive incoming transfer to an English club broken twice in a day! The last time it was broken in the same window was when Stan Collymore signed for Liverpool for a million pounds more than Dennis Bergkamp's move to Arsenal in June 1995.
A record amount of money spent for a January transfer window. No less than 6 player costing more than £20 million - a record that would make most summer windows proud! A day when Liverpool's website had so much traffic that they had to shut it down due to overload and come back with just a simple announcement's page. So who ever said that winter transfer markets are boring?
PS: Some of the other transfers concluded today include Michael Bradley to Aston Villa, Eidur Gudjohnsen to Fulham, Daniel Sturrage to Bolton and Stephen Ireland to Newcastle all on loan while Tuncay signed for Steve McLaren's Wolfberg.
Why bother having a window, we should just have a transfer day!
I enjoyed reading that!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ashay, really appreciate it =)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2011/02/01/2333201/english-comment-big-spending-at-chelsea-manchester-city
ReplyDelete... and yeah, nice blog.
ReplyDeleteI support your last suggestion. Imagine Chelsea and City on a one-day transfer window..
Thanks man.. Although in Chelsea's case, this was our first 25million + player in 5 years, i.e. since Andriey Shevchenko in 2006. So i don't think it'll really be a fight worth watching. But my point was, they had a whole damn month to do business but they all wait for the last day! talk about procrastination!
ReplyDelete