da blaze casino： That’s it then, folks. The transfer window slammed shut last night… or rather creaked to a close.
da fazobetai： Now it’s over, Sky Sports can put their yellow ties away for another few months, and Premier League clubs cannot add to their squads until their fate for 2016/17 has been decided.
It was not an exciting month transfer-wise, whatever Sky try to tell us. Finding out Max Gradel was in Nando’s was perhaps not the great saga that the bosses had hoped for, nor was Dimitar Berbatov wandering around London. Although the window fell short of some of the show-stopping Januarys of recent years, there were plenty of winners and losers up and down the Premier League.
For many clubs the January window made no sense, though that obviously did not stop them spending million after million on players. For others, it was a window of necessity, fittingly those clubs were less active.
Here are FIVE clubs that certainly failed over the last few weeks…
Liverpool
Liverpool have good depth, they have a strong squad. Jurgen Klopp, however, has seen the weakest points of his team exposed during the last few weeks and it is remarkable they did not make a splash in the January market.
Joel Matip and Sadio Mane are still without replacements in their first-team and additions to the defence are a must. It could, as with so many top clubs, cost Liverpool ground in the second half of this season, too.
Stoke City
Finally ending the Saido Berahino saga was a treat to us all, so thank you Stoke City, Peter Coates and Mark Hughes. That alone, mind, was not enough to make this window a success for the Potters. Hughes’ questionable selections saw Bojan force a move away from the club and the addition of Berahino, although a good signing, only bolsters an already overcrowded strikeforce.
Weaknesses in midfield and defence were overlooked, but it is the loss of Bojan that could hurt the Potters most severely.
Sunderland
Losing one of their few goalscoring threats in Patrick van Aanholt may not be the disaster it seems if Bryan Oviedo can prove himself as an adequate defender. Elsewhere, though, Sunderland underwhelmed in the market and failed to add a striker to properly replace the injured Victor Anichebe.
David Moyes deserves sympathy for the situation his is in at the Stadium of Light, but that does not solve the glaring deficiencies in his squad.
West Ham
Despite the additions of Robert Snodgrass and Jose Fonte, West Ham’s January window was disappointing. The forced exit of Dimitri Payet remains the biggest tale of the month, but the fact the Irons were delving into the market at all is questionable. With little to play for in the remainder of this campaign, signing the veteran Fonte and 29-year-old Snodgrass made little sense.
Slaven Bilic clearly wanted to do some business, and that he did, yet West Ham have hardly built for the long-term and still lack goal scorers.
Tottenham
No business from Spurs represented a poor window. With evident weaknesses in their options from the bench, Mauricio Pochettino could have significantly boosted his team’s chances for the second half of the campaign with some additions.
Signings were not a must for Tottenham, and giving the expensive Moussa Sissoko more opportunities is a necessity, but it could end up making all the difference