With only nine days of the transfer window left nothing much is happening. Despite clubs wanting business done early because of the World Cup, only West Ham and Liverpool appear to have done very much about it, although Everton are catching up.
At the time of writing Manchester United have spent the third highest amount of all the Premier League clubs but they have only really bought one player, Fred, who can expect to be a regular next season.
So is this transfer window proving more difficult than others? Has the Neymar deal really had a massive effect on all other potential signings?
Well, Manchester City looked as though they had signed Jorginho from Napoli until he was blackmailed into going to Stamford Bridge at the last minute. That was never about the money though and the player was always going to move. City did, however, have to pay £60 million to get Riyad Mahrez a player who, pre-Neymar, would have cost around £30 million.
Manchester United are struggling for two reasons. Firstly, Ed Woodward, despite a couple of half-decent transfer windows, still hasn’t a clue how to negotiate a deal. Secondly, Mourinho wants a player from Tottenham Hotspur and, when you have a Chief Executive as bad as Woodward, Spurs are the last club with whom you want to be in negotiations.
They would also, as an alternative to Alderweireld, like Harry Maguire from Leicester but would be forced to pay somewhere in the region of £70 million to get him. This is because they couldn’t work out that he was a good player when he was at Sheffield United, then Hull City and even just before the World Cup. Had they managed to spot his potential at any of those previous moments in time then the most they would have had to spend would have been £25 million.
Yerry Mina would be a cheaper, and taller, alternative to Harry Maguire. The Barcelona player also had a successful World Cup with Colombia
Maguire, before the Neymar sale and after the World Cup would still only be worth around £20 million.
Daniel Levy at Tottenham has taken one look at the money now required to buy an average player and retreated under his desk, curled up into a ball, and is refusing to come out until August the 10th, when it’s all over.
Arsenal and Chelsea have new managers who are both being respectful of their bosses for a very short while before demanding that they spend £200 million on a couple of players.
Real Madrid want everybody now that they have money from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo. His was certainly a transfer fee driven up by the aforementioned PSG purchase of Neymar. Madrid sold him for virtually what they paid nine years ago. Not bad for a 33 year-old, particularly when considering that vastly overrated, one-time team mate, Wayne Rooney is now breaking his nose in the MLS retirement home.
Anyway, Real are looking to buy Thibaut Courtois, Eden Hazard and Willian from Chelsea which should ensure the London club’s slide down the table continues. They also want Edinson Cavani from PSG depending upon which Daily Clickbait you read. So there’s a couple of hundred million spent in a flash and all thanks to PSG buying the Brazilian version of Tom Daley.
So it is fair to say that the price of players has, in general, increased dramatically since Neymar dived his way from Barcelona to Paris and it is thanks to PSG that every other club, certainly in Europe and probably the world, now has to pay around double what the previous transfer fee would have been prior to the little corkscrew jumping ship.
And finally…..
According to reports José Mourinho has received the backing of the club’s owners. Why? This usually comes after a string of bad results halfway through the season, not before a ball is even kicked!
Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, Mourinho got a vote of confidence from this lot!
Are they complimenting him on his negative outlook, his criticisms of the hierarchy and his general pessimism for the forthcoming season? Or are they just trying to show that, despite the fact they are not signing anybody, they still love the manager for putting up with them?
Whatever the reasons, a vote of confidence from the board is never a good sign and Mourinho would do well to have somebody watch his back in order to remove the knives when they start to go in.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 