Exciting or overhyped? Transfer deadline day is here.

Are the transfer deadline days (because there are two of them every season) the most gripping moments in football’s calendar or the most overhyped? 

Last January the transfer window, if we’re honest, was a colossal bore.  The BBC commissioned a special programme to capture the ‘drama’ approaching 12 midnight, while clubs responded by negotiating deals like Everton’s successful attempt to secure the signature of John Stones.

The latest deadline shows more promise.  There isn’t much surprise as regards the most valuable transfer of the year.  It’s long been apparent that Gareth Bale will play for Real Madrid this season, particularly as Tottenham had already revamped their squad with the expected proceeds.

Still, Arsenal fans will be excited that Arsene Wenger has finally dipped into the club’s reserves to buy a quality player like Mesut Ozil.  The London club may not stop there, with the Daily Telegraph predicting something of a spree.

Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers, had also attracted criticism for not making new signings before the new season.  The club had refused to outbid its opponents for the Armenian midfielder, Henrikh Mkhitaryan or the Brazilian winger, Willian.  Those players ended up at Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea. 

Today, two new central defenders, the French international, Sakho, and the young Portuguese, Tiago Ilori, have arrived at Anfield.  The Nigerian forward, Victor Moses, has also joined, on a season long loan from Chelsea. 

Whether these players can improve, substantially, on the personnel already at Liverpool, remains open to question.  However, coming quickly after a 1-0 victory against the Champions of England, Manchester 
United, they add to a sense of optimism that was not evident previously.

Earlier, the Guardian suggested, on its deadline day timeline, that Brendan Rodgers had tabled a £30 million bid for Juan Mata.  If that transfer came to fruition, then Liverpool fans genuinely would be excited. 

Meanwhile, we’ll have to see whether the next few hours bring further excitement or anti-climax.   

Comments

Anonymous said…

Are you in need of a loan? Do you want to pay off your bills? Do you want to be financially stable? All you have to do is to contact us for more information on how to get started and get the loan you desire. This offer is open to all that will be able to repay back in due time. Note-that repayment time frame is negotiable and at interest rate of 3% just email us creditloan11@gmail.com
24 April 2017 at 10:34
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retaine...
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro...
Read more