The Crazy Spending Of The January Transfer Window

The transfer window is a period the tabloids love with their continuous volumes of rumours to fuel the avid fan with belief his team is going to invest heavily in a top class forward, finally. The window at the turn of the year is traditionally one which sees low costs moves, usually mid-table clubs investing heavily to help avoid the drop. But this January saw an anomaly in England; big signings. Fernando Torres (£50m), Andy Carroll (£32m), Luis Suarez (£22m), David Luiz (£25m), Darren Bent (24m) and Edin Dzeko (£27m) all moved for prices above £20m, in deals you would generally expect to see in the summer. But what was the general trend across Europe?

The difference between the other European nations was drastic. With UEFA implementing new financial regulations next season in which clubs cannot spend more than their annual turnover, it seems the powerhouses of England – riddled with debt – wanted to make one last splurge. Overall in January a reported £225m was spent in the Premier League, a record amount which even surpasses the previous milestone of £175m which was set back in 2008, mainly due to Manchester City’s spending. The Citizens would be part of proceedings once more, but the big spenders were Chelsea. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovic has been reluctant in the past few seasons to invest, hoping the influx of youth signings under Frank Arnesen would be promoted and provide an ending to the Jose Mourinho years of economically draining investments.

Over in Spain money was spent, but not in large quantities. Barcelona’s sole purchase was young Dutchman Ibrahim Affelay from PSV Eindhoven who cost roughly €2m, while Real Madrid’s recruitment was the flimsy loan signing of Emanuel Adebayor from Manchester City. Malaga, under the ownership of a Qatari millionaire, helped spice up the transfer window signing six new players, the most costly being former Arsenal forward Julio Baptista who returned to Spain from Italy for  €3m.

Giampaolo Pazzini Celebrates After Scoring A Goal For His New Club

Walcott Should Use The Disappointment As A Catalyst

After the shambolic way in which the FA decided to announce the 23 players England would be taking to the World Cup this summer, via the aid of social networking site Twitter, we were left with a few surprises. The likes of Leighton Baines, Tom Huddlestone and Darren Bent would have sat in thought of how they could have furthered their chances. All arguably in the richest vein of form in their young careers, they would have felt harshly done by being dropped in favour of players in poor form, although a young man who grew up in Newbury would have been distraught at missing out when his place on the plane was only his to lose.

Four years ago England went to Germany with the Coach Sven Goran Eriksson popping a surprise player into his squad – a relatively unheard of 17-year-old called Theo Walcott. With only six months of professional football under his belt playing for south coast side Southampton, Walcott was signed up by Arsenal – Arsene Wenger acting characteristically swiftly in pursuit of refreshing young talent. What surprised the public most was the fact that this fresh-faced youngster hadn’t represented Arsenal, yet he was deemed good enough to go to the World Cup.

Despair For Walcott