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Friday, January 04, 2008

Lots of rumors, but...

Lots of rumors in the European tranfer window, Berbatov to Manchester United, Anelka to Chelsea, Mascherano to Juventus, and Agbonlahor to Arsenal but so far no deals of any real significance have been done. Is this a sign of caution? No money? Negotiating tactics? Maybe all of them. One thing is for sure, when a transfer window is not front loaded its usually a sign that few deals will be made.

If you look at the Premiership, its looking like a 2 horse race between Manchester United and Arsenal. For Liverpool and Chelsea to catch up using transfers, they would have to invest big money to make that happen. The most I see either club doing is shoring up their squads. I don’t see either club moving for an impact player.

The real place for movement this January is at the bottom of the table. Lots of new managers are going to get funds to help their sides make a push up the table, but these are going to be small deals. Sunderland, Fulham and Derby County all need help now.

Manchester City need a striker, that is likely to happen and Tottenham need to stop leaking goals, but Spurs have let in something like 19 from set pieces: to me that means you don’t need new players, you need some better coaching.

Blackburn need help at the back, and they are pretty one dimentional up front, there might be a signing my Mark Hughes in there.

Otherwise, Arsenal are stacked. Manchester United have enough to do to integrate what they already have signed. Liverpool might sign support, and so may Chelsea, otherwise this transfer window has little excitement to offer, better to focus on the games.

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