Transfer Window slams shut

Well, that's it until January. Teams have registered there 25 man squads for the next four months of the season and teams will have to make do with there current crop (unless your Man City in which case emergency loans happen whenever they feel like it).

First off, with an overview of the deadline day dealings. It is clear to me that Roy Hodgson's signing of Paul Konchesky for Liverpool was a major coup for a club hoping to establish themselves as a mid table outfit, Man City took a massive loss on Robinho but letting him depart to AC Milan for a fee said to be around £18million whilst AC Milan also added Zlatan Ibrahimovic to a forward line already consisting of Ronaldinho, Pato and Inzaghi thus enabling a 2-3-5 formation to be fully utilised.

I may be slightly biased in saying this, but I feel Tottenham's 11th hour signing of Rafael Van Der Vaart has to be the best signing on deadline day. At £8million, Levy has managed to pull off a major signing here that will only add to the array of attacking talent available to Redknapp which includes the likes of Luka Modric, Niko Krancjar, Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon. I feel the closest rival to this would be Birmingham's acquisition of former Arsenal playmaker Alexander Hleb on a season long loan from Barcelona thus signalling Alex McLeish's intention to push Birmingham higher up the table to, potentially, aim for a Europa League spot whilst Sunderland's signing of Ghana's Asamoah Gyan deserves an honourable mention especially if he can replicate his World Cup form onto pitches up and down England.

Stoke also were frantic on deadline day as they managed to pull off the marquee signing of Eidur Gudjohnsen from Monaco giving Tony Pulis the option of 'Natural Viking Strength' up front coupled with the signings of former Portsmouth utility man Marc Wilson and former Arsenal, Liverpool and F1 driver Jermaine Pennant on a season long loan from Real Zaragoza along with tying Salif Diao down to a long term deal. A good day all round for fans of Stoke City who need to pick things up quickly after 3 losses on the bounce.

Elsewhere, Ryan Babel thoroughly enjoyed his helicopter tour of London but thought life on the bench up in Liverpool under Woy was better than first team football at West Ham whilst a fee for England's best striker, Carlton Cole, couldn't be agreed between Liverpool and West Ham.

Looking at the transfer window as a whole, a number of the Top 4 were pretty quiet. Chelsea let go of some dead wood as Joe Cole signed for Liverpool, Michael Ballack was released and joined former club Bayer Leverkusen whilst ex-Barcelona playmaker Deco signed for Brazilian outfit Fluminense along with Juliano Belletti whilst adding the forgotten Liverpool man, Yossi Benayoun - a bad move for Liverpool as they worked better with him rather than without. Joining Benayoun is Brazilian centre midfielder Ramires who has joined the reigning champions for a fee of £18million from Portuguese outfit Benfica.

Manchester United invested in youth with the signings of Chris Smalling from Fulham, Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez joined from Guadalajara following a successful cameo role for Mexico in the World Cup (I fully expect big things from this guy, he seems a great young signing by Sir Alex Ferguson) and finally, Bebe joined from Guimaraes for £7.4million although, SAF recently admitted he has never seen Bebe play and his former coach at Estrela da Amadora even offered him around Europe for as little as £125,000 in January. Not the best bit of business by the successful Scot especially as Manchester United's debt is continuing to spiral out of control.

Arsenal made three much needed signings in the form of Marouane Chamakh from Bordeaux on a free, thus allowing Wenger to NOT play Nicklas Bendtner whilst re-enforcing his defence following the release of Sol Campbell, William Gallas and Mikael Silvestre with the signings of Laurent Koscielny from Lorient and Sebastien Squillaci from Spanish outfit, Sevilla. However, I feel Wenger should have gone one step further to improving his defence by signing a more reliable goalkeeper than Manuel Almunia and, perhaps, should have tried harder to sign Shay Given from Man City following Joe Hart's realisation that he is now Manchester City's number 1.

Tottenham, as previously mentioned, completed the last minute signing of Dutch playmaker Rafael Van Der Vaart for £8million from Real Madrid thus joining former Arsenal and Chelsea defender William Gallas, Croatia's number 1 Stipe Pletikosa on a season long loan from Spartak Moscow and Lou Ferrigno wannabe, Sandro from Brazilian outfit Internacional. I, personally, am gutted we missed out on Luis Fabiano, who signed a new 2 year deal with Sevilla, and Klass-Jan Huntelaar who signed for FC Schalke 04 from AC Milan (otherwise they could've played a 2-2-6 formation).

Manchester City were the big spenders of the transfer window with the acquisitions of Mario Balotelli from Inter Milan, Alexsandar Kolarov from Lazio, Yaya Toure from Barcelona, David Silva from Valencia, Jerome Boateng from Hamburg and James Milner from Aston Villa (with Stephen Ireland going the opposite direction). To be honest, I don't really know where to start with these signings. Granted, each player will help City in the future but it appears they do have more money than sense. £25millon for James Milner for example. He is a good player, don't get me wrong, but, with Spurs signing Van Der Vaart for a fraction of the price, it seems hardly worth it in the end. Coupled, with this is the loss of Stephen Ireland who I believe deserves a place at a top 4 club and his treatment by Mancini and co. is beyond ludicrous.

Anyway, moving on, as previously mentioned, Liverpool signed Paul Konchesky and Joe Cole from Fulham and Chelsea, respectively whilst adding Portuguese centre midfielder Raul Meireles to the fold at the expense of Javier Mascherano, who threw his toys out of the pram in order to join Barcelona, and the great mythical beast that is Alberto Aquilani joined Juventus on a season long loan with a view to a permanent move.

Elsewhere around Europe, Barcelona only decided to become more of an attacking threat courtesy of the signing of David Villa whilst filling the gap left by the departure of Yaya Toure with the signing of Javier Mascherano, presumably, because they couldn't sign Fabregas from Arsenal. Real Madrid, under Mourinho, completed the signings of Angel Di Maria and Germany World Cup stars Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira.

In Italy, AC Milan completed the late signings of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robinho, Roma signed Marco Borriello from AC Milan, Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani (once linked with Tottenham) signed for Napoli from Palermo, Fiorentina completed the signing of former Celtic cult hero Artur Boruc along with Liverpool left back Emiliano Insua on a season long loan whilst Roma completed the signing of former Inter Milan striker and Brazilian hot head, Adriano from Flamengo and versatile Argentinian defender Nicholas Burdisso from Inter Milan.

Apologies for the length and vague look at the transfers, I will be back to my in depth views in my next post.

Gotta go as I have work. Will write again soon.

Laters,

Macca