WHY SAY ANYTHING?

(All targets for top clubs who failed to sign any of them!)

In general the top six did some pretty reasonable transfer business. Manchester United and City both spent fortunes and got the majority of their signings in early. Liverpool also managed to bring in most of the players they wanted.

Tottenham Hotspur had a good final day and only Arsenal and Chelsea could be said to have failed abysmally at getting their targets through the door.

There were, however, some very good players who stayed exactly where they were, sometimes through good management from their clubs and sometimes through rank bad management from the club trying to buy them. Here’s some of the big names that the top six missed out on:

Manchester City

Thanks to their own over-confidence in thinking that, by leaving their offer for Alexis Sánchez until the last day of the window, they would force Arsenal to sell, they actually ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

Arsenal demanded a player plus cash deal, City offered cash only. Arsenal tried to sign Thomas Lemar to replace Sánchez and he decided he didn’t want to join Arsenal at such short notice, a wise decision seeing how things are going at Arsenal presently.

Arsenal need to sell Sánchez and had agreed the fee with City. City should have made their offer a couple of days earlier. If they had done so Sánchez would now be a City player.

Manchester United

Leaving aside the usual boring rumours involving Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, the only player it seems that United really wanted but didn’t get was Ivan Perisić of Inter Milan.

Apparently Inter valued the player at a price higher than United were prepared to pay. We find this reluctance to pay very strange when considering that Dithering Ed happily overpaid, by vast amounts, for Marouane Fellaini, Angel Di Maria, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin to name but four. Of these four and, quite surprisingly in some respects, Fellaini is the only one still at the club.

Perisić would have been an excellent addition to the squad and is currently in his peak years. Not signing him will not be the difference between winning the title and not, but it would certainly have helped the cause if they had bought him.

A better option for January would be Thomas Lemar of Monaco.

Liverpool

Most of the headlines concerning Liverpool were about Philippe Coutinho and his desire to play for Barcelona. Not only did Liverpool manage to hold onto him, (which may not be such a good thing), they also managed to sign Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who now faces a fight to get into the team.

So Liverpool didn’t really miss out on any of their targets but they did keep one big player in their ranks. They are, however, still short of a centre forward and a centre back.

Arsenal

Another team who managed to keep their best player despite him wanting to leave. Arsenal are now struggling to attract players. They are no longer a big enough team to bring in players without Champions League football and Arséne Wenger is certainly no attraction for top players any longer.

Their only “target” was Thomas Lemar and they dithered that long before, in a state of absolute panic, they made a massive offer and the player smelled a rat and decided he wanted time to think about it in the full knowledge that the transfer window was about to close. This despite the likes of Giroud and Koscielny trying to persuade him that the club really is OK and he should sign.

Arsenal can forget about top players and Champions League for the next two years at least.

Chelsea

Having secured the signing of their second choice striker, Chelsea also now seem to have a problem attracting players and it has to be down to the manager. They are the current champions and can offer Champions League football so why did Fernando Llorente prefer to go to Spurs, why did Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain opt for Liverpool, why did Romelu Lukaku choose Manchester United and why did Ross Barkley decide that Chelsea were not the right club for him when halfway through his medical with them, (if reports can be believed)?

Could it possibly be because of the way Diego Costa has been treated?

Assuming that these players were being offered good contracts with plenty of money on the table then the fault has to lie with the coach. At least Arsenal can use the excuse that they are not playing in the Champions League, even if Wenger is off-putting for some players. What is Chelsea’s excuse?

Unless counting Romelu Lukaku, it doesn’t appear that they had a “top target” they missed out on.

Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs ended up having a very good window thanks to a strong final day. They appear to have signed everybody they wanted and look just as strong, if not stronger, than before. They haven’t, as far as we are aware, missed out on any of their prime targets.

Their only problems this season concern mentality and geography. The players can’t seem to get their heads around playing at White Hart Wembley!