As far as transfer window closing days go, Monday was a
disappointment. Apart from the movement of a couple of strikers no major
signing was made. That was mainly due to the fact that the usual big movers,
Chelsea and Manchester City, chose to do much of their business well in
advance. Other than the one in and one out at Manchester United there were
hardly any surprise eleventh hour moves where private jets and helicopters are
rushed into service. We’ll have to wait till January for that.
The biggest movers of this transfer window were Manchester
United. Not surprising though considering last season’s debacle and a change of
management. Ryan Giggs, who had been around ever since the Premier League began
finally brought to an end a very glittering and trophy laden career. Vidic, Rio
Ferdinand and Evra were considered past their use by date and moved on. That leaves
a massive gap to fill and while Smalling and Jones have shown potential Evans hasn’t
quite made the step-up to the standards a club of United’s stature demands. This
year they have put down a marker with the not one but two marquee signings.
Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao are dream signings for any manager and for
the club supporters. Last season United were found short of quality in the
midfield and too often Rooney had to drop deep and turn provider for Van Persie
to finish. He had 10 assists and created 56 chances. However, when Van Persie
got injured the goals dried up as neither Welbeck nor Hernandez had the quality
to convert those chances. Van Gaal has sought to address the problem with by
bringing in Di Maria who can do for Rooney what Rooney did for Van Persie. With
Van Persie’s injury record it is important to have a quality back-up striker
and they don’t come much better than Radamel Falcao. United pulled off a major
coup by getting El Tigre on a one
year loan from Monaco. He is a proven out-n-out striker who really comes to
life inside the box. He offers little outside of it but when you have a troika
of Di Maria, Rooney and Mata as a creative force behind you all that remains to
be done is bang them in.
A lot has been said and written about United still being
able to draw top players based on these two signings but fact is that Falcao is
something of a footballing mercenary, not that I’m against any man trying to
earn a better pay for unquestionable talent and only a short time at the top,
but he has never shown any special desire to play Champions League. In any case
his first choice was always Real Madrid. Di Maria too had preferred a move to
PSG and agreed to come to United only after he PSG back out and he had already
burnt his bridges at Real by then. United also paid over the top for him. But I
feel it’s better to pay a premium for quality players than save the money and
die wondering. These two along with the other new signings Blind, Herrera, Rojo
and Shaw have the quality to bring United back into the Champions League. With the
failure of the much publicized pursuit of Arturo Vidal and later De Jong failing
to materialize it will remain to be seen how Van Gaal manages his 3-5-2
formation without a quality central midfielder.
Arsenal seem to have given up on winning the league. As
happens every year, they were linked with a host of stars but finally ended up
only signing Danny Welbeck from United. Big names like Falcao and Cavani were
touted as targets while Arsenal publicly said Wenger turned down Balotelli
twice. When they moved to the Emirates from Highbury they said a few years of austerity
would follow in order to balance the books. Academy graduates were promoted to
first team with success and they always managed to finish in the top four
bringing with it the spoils of Champions League football. But in reality they
were never in a position to challenge for the either the Premier League or the
Champions League. There is no need to be frugal anymore yet Wenger refuses to
buy a top striker. What he has at his disposal is an excellent collection of
playmakers but he needs someone to provide the end result. Giroud is a decent
striker but nowhere near the quality of strikers Chelsea, Liverpool and the two
Manchester clubs have on their roster. Sanogo and Joel Campbell are not Premier
League standard, not yet. It’s a good move for Welbeck though he will be first
choice striker at least until Giroud returns. He could make a name for himself
like Sturridge did at Liverpool. Arsenal are also short on defenders with only
six in the first team. With any one of them injured it leaves them quite
vulnerable at the back. Why was Varmalen allowed to leave so late and not
suitably replaced is a mystery.
Liverpool, having qualified for Champions League, needed to
add numbers to their squad. The likes of Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, Dejan
Lovren and Lazar Markovic were swiftly brought in to cover all areas but the
icing on the cake was the signing of Mario Balotelli from AC Milan for a
bargain £16 million. The enigmatic striker comes with a reputation of being a
disruptive force in the dressing room. But if there is one team where he can
settle down it is Liverpool. His spells at Inter, Man City and AC Milan have
been highlighted mostly for the wrong reasons but he is older now and realizes
it is probably his last chance to get his head down and be in the news for the
right reasons and the fact that he took a pay cut to push through the move
points in this direction. He will be entrusted with leading the line and will
have no shortage of service playing alongside the very gifted duo of Sturridge
and Sterling. The challenge for Brendan Rogers will be to integrate the host of
new faces into the team quickly and avoid a Tottenham like situation who
despite spending over £100 million on new players last year failed to achieve
the minimum of a top four finish. He will also need to find a new formation
since Balotelli is a very different player comparedd to Suarez.
Tottenham and Manchester City saw few changes and were
content with plugging the gaps. While Ben Davies, Federico Fazio, Michel Vorm
and Eric Dier were Tottenham’s pick Man City’s main signings were highly rate
Porto duo Eliaquim Mangala and Fernando. Getting Frank Lampard on loan till the
end of the year will give them the added experience in midfield.
The winners of the transfer window in my eyes were Chelsea
and Everton. Chelsea identified their weaknesses and moved quickly to bring in
quality players to fill those gaps. A dependable striker was priority and Diego
Costa has taken to the PL like a fish to water scoring 4 in his first 3
matches. Another Mourinho masterstroke was the signing of Cesc Fabregas. He is
a proven entity in the PL and has provided the creative vision behind strike
force notching up 4 assists already. The biggest success, however, was getting
Fernando Torres off the books and swiftly replacing him with Loic Remy. Remy
is, at £8.5 million, a steal and although he failed a medical at Liverpool it
was surprising that Arsenal and Tottenham did not pursue their initial interest
in him. I suspect he is a short term signing and will probably be replaced by
Mattia Destro next season. Everton not only managed to keep hold of all their
star players they also made permanent the loan signings of Lukaku and Gareth
Barry. Getting Eto’o on a one year deal is a great deal for Roberto Martinez apart
from giving a different dimension to the attack he will also play the role of a
mentor to the youthful team, Lukaku in particular.
On the basis of the existing squads and the signings made over
the summer its quite safe to say that Chelsea and Manchester City will be front
runners for the league winner’s trophy at the end of the season while there
will be tough competition for the remaining two Champions League places. But football
is not played on paper and if Falcao, Di Maria, Balotelli and the usual
suspects produce the goods as only they can this could be the closest finish to
the league for positions one to seven.
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