What makes a football journalist? It is tempting to think of her or him as a layabout who stumbles from the public house to the computer, bashes out some wild story and then stumbles back.
But maybe we have got this wrong. What if the football journalist was doing this all on purpose, so as to torment and demean? What if she or he was looking on at those who believed his/her wild ravings, laughing with a sound reminiscent of the waves breaking on the coast at Lands End at those silly chumps taking it all in?
These fellows are dangerous, thrashing about with their wild stories like minor prophets from the Old Testament bedecked in boxing gloves and 100 tons of TNT at the ready.
Hence the need for us to balance the rumour mongering from time to time with the list of who has actually gone and come to and from as it were.
The list of your actual transfers in fact. And yes, OK, I know, they are taken from data presented in the Guardian*, but a) we acknowledge that and b) we don’t have the reporters in the field to check on it outselves. Well, they were in the field, but it started to rain so they went home for tea.
| Club | In | Cost | Out | Income | Loaned out |
| Arsenal | Lucas Torreira | £26.4m | Santi Cazorla | Released | Takuma Asano |
| Stephan Lichtsteiner | Nil | Jack Wilshere | Released | ||
| Bernd Leno | £19.2m | ||||
| Sokratis | £17.7m | ||||
| Chelsea | Harvey St Clair | Released | Nathan Baxter | ||
| Jordon Houghton | Released | Reece James | |||
| Jonathan Panzo | Undisclosed | Trevoh Chalobah | |||
| Nathan Baxter | |||||
| Reece James | |||||
| Dujon Sterling | |||||
| Lewis Baker | |||||
| Dujon Sterling | |||||
| Jake Clarke-Salter | |||||
| Liverpool | Naby Keïta | £52.8m | Emre Can | Nil | Ovie Ejaria |
| Fabinho | £40m | Yan Dhanda | Unknown | Adam Bogdan | |
| Jordan Williams | Released | ||||
| Jon Flanagan | Nil | ||||
| Man City | Yaya Toure | Released | Anthony Cáceres | ||
| Pablo Maffeo | £8.1m | Ashley Smith-Brown | |||
| Will Patching | Released | Pablo Marí | |||
| Olarenwaju Kayode | £2.6m | ||||
| Angeliño | £5m | ||||
| Javairo Dilrosun | Unknown | ||||
| Jacob Davenport | Unknown | ||||
| Man United | Fred | £43.7m | Joe Riley | Unknown | Dean Henderson |
| Diogo Dalot | £19m | Sam Johnstone | £6.5m | ||
| Lee Grant | £1.5m | ||||
| Tottenham H | Keanan Bennetts | £2m |
Of course numbers don’t mean anything – quality counts, and there has been a lot of questioning of Arsenal’s quality of late, bringing in old men or kids not ready to play. But it is interesting that some clubs – the Tiny Totts, Manchester City and Chelsea stand out – are not buying a sausage. Nor a player.
Now of course maybe they think their squads are perfect, and indeed one can hardly claim there was much wrong with Manchester City in the league last year. But if Tottenham have pretensions of winning anything other than the League Cup for the first time in 28 years, one might think they might be buying something.
They have come third, second and third in the past three seasons, which means they have come above us twice in the last three years – and maybe that is enough for them. It certainly is a huge improvement on what happen in the past however many years it was. However one might have expected that they want a little more. Unless, as suggested once or twice here, the stadium is holding them back. Still plenty of time to go however.
As for Chelsea, I wonder. As we know Mr Abramovich has taken up Israeli citizenship and so can visit England without a visa whenever he wants, but he has no right to work here. He seems to have given the order to abandon the stadium project… and it appears there are no transfer deals.
Obviously the men behind the scenes are doing their stuff with the youngsters being shipped out by the bucketful as normal, but for the big deals… As with Tottenham I think if the situation remains as now until the end of the glass thing that slams shut on August 9, that will be an indicator.
Of late we have had a few big moves such as
Álvaro Odriozola from Real Sociedad to Real Madrid for £35.4m
Alex Meret from Udinese to Napoli for £31m
Fabián Ruiz from Real Betis to Napoli for £26.5m
Lautaro Martínez from Racing Club to Inter for £20.1m
Yuri Berchiche from Paris Saint-Germain to Athletic Bilbao for £21.3m
Kylian Mbappé Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain £159.3m
League by League the money spent is this
- Premier League: £494.5m
- Serie A: £536.5m
- Ligue 1: £525.3m
- Bundesliga: £422.3m
- La Liga: £449.7m
Now I think we are quite used to the Premier League spending the most. So I wonder what is going on? Of course the Ligue 1 figure is inflated by adding in last year’s transfer to PSG, but on the other hand it wasn’t counted in the figures last year and it has to turn up somewhere.
Interesting also that Spain is spending less than Italy. It all seems a bit odd. Maybe they are waiting for the World Cup to finish.
Meanwhile…
You might enjoy this little piece from earlier today
The Arsenal and The Arsenal: two realities, no communication, worlds apart.
SHA, you seem to have missed out on the possibility (probability) that the Hacks have laptops, so they don’t need to leave the public house to use a computer…
What happened, Brexit, so the value of the pound fell sharply.
Numbers don’t matter, quality does. The Tiny Totts only need width and quality and a second striker.
City are quietly amassing again, Mahrez and Jorginho will be near enough it, but given that Fernandinho and Gundagan were both given the run around, they may well add to the midfield again, whilst they could possibly use a striker. If Sergio is crocked which seems increasingly likely with age and fatigue now a dangerous factor, Jesus isn’t at that level yet.
Liverpool are an interesting one, Klopp has money burning a hole in his pocket. he;s got a proper RB and actual DM?BWM, he still needs a LB a CB, a playmaker and triker, with another winger not to be scoffed at.
United will be cursing the World Cup, as they will want to move players on, but largely this won’t be possble until they have everyone back in.
Arsenal on the other hand, bouyed by the activities of last January, have addressed 2 of 3 key areas. With Mustarfi and Sokratis both fluent in German, Mavrapanos abe to learn directly from his countrymen and Callum and Rob making inroads. we can cobble together a back line and supporting cast in terms of these positions. but I will repeat, LB needs a starter, similarly to RB needing a suppliment of almost exactly Stephans stature, his end product is very good and is also the area in which Hector is most lacking.
Get me Diallo and Soyuncu, that finishes that defence.
Now all of my targets are available to be agreed.
Lets get Ospina and Cech moved on please. We’ll come back to Danny, who should be considering West Ham, who should be considering him, along with Everton.
Roy likes his good guys, and quality, wouldn’t be surpised to see them mvoe for Wifried and Danny tbh.