By Chris Wright
‘Twas a bit of a slow one yesterday as anyone who spent 11-and-a-bit hours ‘glued’ to the live feed will tell you, with the total spending across the English leagues failing to surpass the £50 million that Chelsea spaffed on Fernando Torres this time last year – let alone the ludicrous £225 million that was spent in total in January of 2011.
There’s not an awful lot to go at vis-a-vis blockbuster moves, but we thought we’d give all of yesterday’s transfer comings and goings the once over – starting with the five best deals to go through in our eyes…
5. Curtis Obeng, Wrexham to Swansea, undisclosed: We’ve heard good things about 22-year old, Man City academy graduate full-back Obeng though, granted, we’ve never actually seen him play. Non-league to the top flight is an awfully large jump, but put it this way, we’ve ‘earmarked’ young Curtis. One to watch.
4. Sotoris Krygiakos, Wolfsburg to Sunderland, loan: A grizzled, hard-working centre-back that provides a very real threat from set-pieces, playing in a side with Seb Larsson on deadball duties? What’s not to like? Sure to become a fans’ favourite, just as he did at Liverpool.
3. Seb Bassong, Tottenham to Wolves, loan: While he isn’t the man to keep Wolves in the Premier League, Bassong is an adept centre-half desperate to prove his worth. You get the feeling that he could’ve joined a much better-placed side either here or abroad, so it stands to reason that Wolves have pulled off a bit of a coup here.
2. Nikica Jelavic, Rangers to Everton, £5.5 million: I still have my reservations over Jelavic in so far as was ‘free-scoring’…but in the SPL (that added caveat is a bitch) but signing a confident, in-form striker in January is just what Everton needed to do and seeing as though they’ve basically just reinvested the £5 million they recouped for Diniyar Bilyaletdinov – a disenfranchised bench-warmer at best – it’s not a bad little ‘swap’. Getting Steven Pienaar back on loan wasn’t bad business either!
1. Bobby Zamora/Djibril Cisse, Fulham/Lazio to QPR, £8 million: Mark Hughes has gone out and pinched himself a brand-new, Premier League-standard ‘big man, little man’ strike force that is almost certain to work. With Zamora holding and linking and Cisse legging it around like a scalded cock, I foresee goals – important goals. Poor old Heidar Helguson, eh?
And the five worst…
5. Louis Saha, Everton to Tottenham, loan: “If he can keep himself fit…yadda, yadda, yadda…”. History tells us repeatedly that he can’t.
4. Pavel Pogrebnyak, Stuttgart to Fulham, £3 million: Apparently the Russian striker has been told he’ll have to “bulk up like a beast” by Martin Jol if he’s going to get on in England. Bearing in mind Pog’s reported to have only joined Fulham on an initial six-month contract, how long will that take precisely?
3. Ravel Morrison, Manchester United to West Ham, £600,000: The English Taarabt, i.e, an imploding star waiting to happen at a club where he’ll be surrounded by leeches as soon as you like. In short, if he was going to straighten himself out anywhere, it would’ve been United. As someone (apologies, I don’t remember who it was) put it on Twitter yesterday: “Morrison? Walking around East London? With money in his pocket? What could possibly go wrong?”. A small-scale Apocalypse, that’s what could go wrong.
2. David Pizarro, Roma to Manchester City, loan: I could’ve got excited about Pizarro coming to the Premier League a few years ago. A wily, deep-lying playmaker with an eye for the magnificent – but he wasn’t getting in Luis Enrique’s Roma side for a reason: He’s almost completely immobile these days. We predict a couple of run-outs in the Europa League before he toddles back to Italy in the summer.
1. Wayne Bridge, Manchester City to Sunderland, loan: Pray tell, when is spending any money on former footballer Wayne Bridge ever a good idea?
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Any other transfers catch you’re eye yesterday for one reason or another? Here’s the full deadline day list (blatantly copy-and-pasted from the BBC) for you to peruse to your heart’s content…
Nicky Ajose [Peterborough – Chesterfield] Loan
Keith Andrews [Blackburn – West Brom] Free
Kwesi Appiah [Margate – Crystal Palace] Undisclosed
Patrick Bamford [Nottingham Forest – Chelsea] £1.5 million
Sebastien Bassong [Tottenham – Wolves] Loan
Ryan Bennett [Peterborough – Norwich] Undisclosed
Wayne Bridge [Man City – Sunderland] Loan
Kevin de Bruyne [Genk – Chelsea] £6.7 million
Clarke Carlisle [Burnley – Northampton] Loan
Michael Chambers [Dulwich Hamlet – Crystal Palace] Undisclosed
Djibril Cisse [Lazio – QPR] £4 million
Jorge Claros [Motagua – Hibernian] Loan
Billy Clarke [Blackpool – Crawley] Undisclosed
Matthew Connolly [QPR – Reading] Loan
Vedran Corluka [Tottenham – Bayer Leverkusen] Loan
Lee Cox [Inverness – Swindon] Undisclosed
Graham Cummins [Cork – Preston] Undisclosed
Stephen Dawson [Leyton Orient – Barnsley] Undisclosed
Matt Doherty [Wolves – Hibernian] Loan
Robbie Gibbons [Unattached – Scunthorpe]
Ben Harding [Wycombe – Northampton] Free
Karl Hawley [Notts County – Crawley] Loan
Martin Hansen [Liverpool – Viborg FF] Undisclosed
Danny Higginbotham [Stoke City – Nottingham Forest] Loan
Kallum Higginbotham [Falkirk – Huddersfield] Undisclosed
Will Hoskins [Brighton – Sheffield United] Loan
Gonzalo Jara Reyes [West Brom – Brighton] Loan
Nikica Jelavic [Rangers – Everton] Undisclosed
Andy Keogh [Wolves – Millwall] Undisclosed
Neal Kitson [Rochester Rhinos – Northampton] Free
Pa Saikou Kujabi [unattached – Hibernian]
Sotirios Kyrgiakos [Wolfsburg – Sunderland] Loan
Alex MacDonald [Burnley – Plymouth] Loan
Ben Marshall [Stoke – Leicester] Undisclosed
Joe Mattock [West Brom – Brighton] Loan
Nicky Maynard [Bristol City – West Ham] Undisclosed
Paul McCallum [West Ham – Rochdale] Loan
Donal McDermott [Huddersfield – Bournemouth] Undisclosed
Jordan McMillan [Rangers – Dunfermline] Undisclosed
Anthony McNamee [MK Dons – Wycombe] Free
David Mirfin [Watford – Scunthorpe] Loan
Ryo Miyaichi [Arsenal – Bolton] Loan
Ravel Morrison [Manchester United – West Ham] Undisclosed
Oliver Norwood [Manchester United – Coventry] Loan
Curtis Obeng [Wrexham – Swansea] Undisclosed
Luke O’Brien [Bradford – Exeter] Undisclosed
Roy O’Donovan [Coventry City – Hibernian] Loan
Marcus Olsson [Halmstads – Blackburn] Free
Bradley Orr [QPR – Blackburn] Undisclosed
Jon Parkin [Cardiff – Scunthorpe] Loan
Jim Paterson [Unattached – Bristol Rovers]
Steven Pienaar [Tottenham – Everton] Loan
David Pizarro [Roma – Manchester City] Loan
Pavel Pogrebnyak [Stuttgart – Fulham] Undisclosed
John Potter [Dunfermline – Queen of the South] Loan
Scott Rendell [Wycombe – Oxford] Loan
Liam Ridgewell [Birmingham – West Brom] Undisclosed
Fabien Robert [FC Lorient – Doncaster] Loan
Chris Robertson [Torquay – Preston] Undisclosed
Louis Saha [Everton – Tottenham] Free
Paul Slane [Celtic – MK Dons] Loan
Louis Saha [Everton – Tottenham] Free
Adam Smith [Tottenham – Leeds] Loan
Akpo Sodje [Hibernian – released]
Marvin Sordell [Watford – Bolton] Undisclosed
Michael Symes [Bournemouth – Rochdale] Loan
James Tavernier [Newcastle – MK Dons] Loan
Juvhel Tsoumou [Preston – Plymouth] Loan
Daniel Uchechi [Dender – Aberdeen] Free
Ricardo Vaz Te [Barnsley – West Ham] Undisclosed
Frederic Veseli [Manchester City – Manchester United] Undisclosed
Murray Wallace [Falkirk – Huddersfield] £300,000
Murray Wallace [Huddersfield – Falkirk] Loan
Matty Whichelow [Watford – Wycombe] Loan
Ryan Williams [Portsmouth – Fulham] Undisclosed
Lewis Wilson [Newport Pagnell Town – Northampton] Free
Mark Wilson [Doncaster – Oxford] Free
Scott Wootton [Manchester United – Nottingham Forest] Loan
Bobby Zamora [Fulham – QPR] Undisclosed