And that folks, that is that until January! The summer transfer window of 2018 is shut and boy did some folk panic.
In Monday’s column, I went through each team’s window to date and yesterday’s activity pretty much rendered those opinions pointless. Unless, of course, you are Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – you can just reread what I said about them as they took yesterday off.
Shall we go over what else has happened then? Shall we? Shall we?
Let’s begin with Burnley who clearly felt having two of the top three English goalkeepers wasn’t enough. Oh no, they wanted to add number four as well because getting Jordan Pickford was pretty unlikely. Joe Hart, having performed so well for teams wearing claret at his last two clubs, has moved to Turf Moor for £4m. Splendid.
Cardiff City have probably done as well as they could have done considering that they have two very tough sells when it comes to player recruitment – one being the fact that they are definitely going down and the other being the fact that new signings will have to put up with Neil Warnock until at least December. That said, Josh Murphy and Bobby Reid are two of the better-priced Championship signings and Harry Arter knows a bit about fighting relegation from the Premier League.
This could get confusing for all of us so let’s flip the tactics ala Peppy G. We will do the rest alphabetically.
Which means Arsenal come third, certainly better than they will finish in the league this season. It’s been a decent window for Unai as we know, and the only other thing he achieved this week was chopping £80k a week off the wage bill by sending Lucas Perez to West Ham.
Bournemouth spent £25m on a player, which is insane, and Brighton signed a right-back from Valencia who are in the Champions League this season. Yeah, money. All that money.
Chelsea had a curious window. Jorginho and Robert Green were already settled in nicely, costing a combined £52m, when Kovacic and Kepa arrived late, blaming their taxi driver. Thibaut Courtois had already kissed the badge six times by the time they unpacked their suitcases.
Crystal Palace became the latest club to sign an Ayew. I don’t know which one and, frankly, they are both bang average. The best birthday present Roy got yesterday was Zaha not forcing a move.
Everton acted like a Surrey mum at a Harrods sale yesterday taking their credit card on EasyJet and landing in Barcelona. Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes were persuaded that Goodison Park is better than a lot of other places and would be ‘great for their career development’. Yerry cost around £30m and Gomes is on loan. They will have been delighted to see Lucas Digne already there to show them the sights. Kurt Zouma might still be on his way (somehow).
Fulham went equally bat-shit crazy signing anyone and anything. Take a deep breath and read this list from yesterday out loud; Sergio Rico (Sevilla), Lucian Vietto (Atletico Madrid), Timothy Fosu-Mensah (Manchester United), Joe Bryan (Bristol City), André Franck Zambo Anguissa (Marseille). Do you reckon Joe feels a little inferior? Over £100m spent by Fulham in the window.
Even Huddersfield Town were at it buying two from Monaco, one from Dortmund and another from, er, Stoke.
Leicester City reinvested the Mahrez money very well indeed buying the highly-rated Caglar Soyuncu from Freiburg and Ricardo Pereira from Porto. They also kept Harry Maguire locked in a cupboard long enough for Ed Woodward to forget to do a deal.
Liverpool did OK, I suppose.
Manchester City finally got Riyad Mahrez and have probably realised he is a year older and just not as good without Jamie Vardy to make him look world-class.
Manchester United had the kind of window where you sign three players and one of them is Lee Grant. Still, at least the got rid of that troublesome Anthony Martial. Eh? He’s still there?
Newcastle United managed to convince Fulham that Mitrovic was worth £22m and then they spread that cash across a few other players meaning they are a stronger squad than they were last season. Admit it Rafa, it is more fun doing it this way.
Southampton have actually made some decent signings in Danny Ings and Angus Gunn, plus a couple of others I’ve not heard of. There is no way Mark Hughes is in charge of transfers as there was no overpaid former Champions League winner on the list I saw.
Tottenham Hotspur left it so late that someone must have forgotten to tell Daniel Levy the window shut last night and not tonight. But the Poch is happy. Honest.
Watford had the usual churn but balanced it out delightfully with flogging Richarlison for £40m. Say what you want about Watford, they play their own game pretty damn well.
Wolves have been class, haven’t they? What other club came up with the strategy of letting a top Portuguese agent run the club and bring in all his top Portuguese players to work under his top Portuguese coach? Genius. Benfica Wolves FC, I salute you.
The Premier League kicks off tonight and later on today I will be ‘previewing’ all this weekend’s fixtures. That’ll be fun.
