Winter Transfer Window 17/18

First topic message reminder :

Bayern Munich have signed Sandro Wagner from Hoffenheim for €12m

Newcastle have agreed a loan deal to sign Kenedy from Chelsea in January

Celtic have signed 32-year-old defender Marvin Compper from RB Leipzig on a two-and-a-half year contract.

Chelsea now looking at Giroud on loan, this is a farce

Expecting West Ham to go for Dendoncker before then a Sturridge loan.

Ayew and/or Sakho out.

Aymeric Laporte to Manchester City to be completed next week. Fee £57m

Fabinho announces his intention to leave Monaco

Arsenal close to signing Aubameyang for 60m once Dortmund find a replacement apparently

Daniel Sturridge joining WBA on loan.

Gerard Deulofeu joins Watford on loan until the end of the season

Tottenham reach agreement with PSG for Lucas Moura. Fee £25m. Slightly better Aaron Lennon in my opinion.

Apparently, Arsenal have accepted £15m from Chelsea for Oliver Giroud. Would mean Batshuayi to Dortmund, allowing Arsenal to complete the deal for Aubameyang. Ladies & Gentleman, the crazy January transfer window.

It doesn't look like Benitez is going to get what he wants in the transfer window. As far as I am aware Newcastle have signed one player on loan in this window. Benitez stuck with Newcastle and got them promoted the year after they were relegated - no mean feat as history attests. You could see his vision for the club - with a bit of investment and its local support it could become a north-eastern powerhouse again, which would have put Benitez in a great position. But it seems that the ownership is just too timid / risk adverse / lacking in ambition for that vision to be realised.

I guess it's time for Benitez to start engineering his next move publicly then

We are selling Another forward and asking for Ki off Swansea as part of an Ayew deal.

We also have about 10 players for tomorrow

Stoke City have agreed a fee of £15m with Galatasaray for midfielder Badou Ndiaye

City bid 60m for Mahrez

I very much doubt that.

Inigo Martinez replaces Laporte at Bilbao

Seen the reports on Mahrez to City. Seems a strange one

You don’t spend £60m on covering Sane for six weeks. £120m spent in January, is doubtful.

It seems too late in the day to be bidding for Mahrez now in this transfer window.  Sane has been ruled out for about 6 weeks due to ligament damage.  Not sure how long Jesus has left to return from injury.   City's forward and midfield lines have been receiving some heavy potentially bone breaking tackles and it is likely a few more will be injured, so I can understand why they might be looking for cover in Mahrez especially as he can play for them in the Champions League.   I would have thought Mahrez would fill the creative hole left at Liverpool by the sale of Coutinho.  No matter what it would be a shame for Leicester to lose him, but these are the times.

They were trying to sign Sanchez before Sane got hurt, not sure it's linked beyond maybe increased urgency.

Auba is at the Arsenal Training Ground

Chelsea complete the signing of defender Emerson Palmieri from Roma

Aleksandar Mitrovic heading back to Anderlecht on loan

Slimani to Newcastle on loan

GSC wrote:Slimani to Newcastle on loan

£2m loan fee, and injured for the next three games. We’ve got no creativity or service, so doubtful he makes much of an impact.

Martin Dubravka on loan for some reason too.

Depressing window, but nothing to be surprised about

Could be worse, could be our window.

Auba done for £56m

Ozil signs a new contract

Aside: Leicester have to win away at Everton this evening (they are not entirely risk free from relegation given what is happening below them - esp. in Swansea).  For that to happen they have to play their most creative player Mahrez.  Yet Mahrez has been tapped up by Man City, putting in a transfer request yesterday at the same time as the Man City bid.  I can't believe that Leicester would let him go now, especially as they can't get anyone to replace him - so I am sure he will stay.  But do you play him for this evening's match - surely you can't?  Yet Leicester are paying him enormous wages ... It is a complete nightmare for some teams the way football business is conducted.

GSC wrote:Ozil signs a new contract

Probably one of the biggest and possibly surprising signings for Arsenal - most were saying he was sure to be off in the summer for a free.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Could be worse, could be our window.

Highlight of the day was reading a West Ham fan's tweet on BBC Sport about how David Sullivan was in Tesco offering them £1 upfront for a Meal Deal and the remaining £2 depending on how it performed

There seems to be a difference between West Ham and Newcastle's respective positions.  David Moyes was happy with his team / squad being of premiership quality and good enough to get them out of the relegation zone - the main issue now seems to be injuries and suspensions (a situation affecting quite a few teams - but particularly West Ham at the moment).  Newcastle's position looks more dire in that it is said that most of the team / squad is of championship quality rather than premiership quality and what they need is addition of premiership quality players to help Benitez avoid Newcastle getting relegated as well to stop Benitez at the end of the season from walking.

Moyes wouldn't get another PL job if he walked.

Benitez is about to actively start engineering his exit so someone else can carry the can for relegation. Ashley backed him to the hilt last year yet he wanted to immediately dump the squad once they got promoted.

No name Bertie wrote:

GSC wrote:Ozil signs a new contract

Probably one of the biggest and possibly surprising signings for Arsenal - most were saying he was sure to be off in the summer for a free.

His agent couldn't get anyone to pay the wages he was after.

And he's on a contract worth £350k a week, reportedly more so than Sanchez is getting at Utd, thought Sanchez was on £600k a week or was that the tabloid press just blowing hot air about the move? hmmmm.

City give up on Mahrez.

Wonder if this might be one too many times he's seen a move to a big club fall through.

Jack Colback to Forest on loan

Eh.

2 players have had contracts cancelled today, Karanka clearly isn't messing around and the owners are backing him.

Also Pantilimon is here to be really tall

Hero wrote:And he's on a contract worth £350k a week, reportedly more so than Sanchez is getting at Utd, thought Sanchez was on £600k a week or was that the tabloid press just blowing hot air about the move? hmmmm.

its all nonsense the sanchez wage thing. he's on 350k a week (still a very good wage) and he can earn more due to rewards and image rights. but image rights are hardly united paying out. fairly simplistic example but, if we sold 10 million sanchez mugs at a pound each. sanchez may earn 20% of that figure. so he would get a extra 2 million but united would still be making 8 million. and rightly so really as the only reason people would be buying such merchandise would be because of him

No name Bertie wrote:

GSC wrote:Ozil signs a new contract

Probably one of the biggest and possibly surprising signings for Arsenal - most were saying he was sure to be off in the summer for a free.

put the feelers out nobody wanted him or certainly wouldn't pay what arsenal would for him. massively luxury player that you can get away with if you cover for his lack of work rate but with arsenals midfield and defence they cant. they have added another in mhiktarian

Mhki was more liability than luxury as he didn't perform the attacking side of itnin the pl. he was a major flop for united.

Just John wrote:Aleksandar Mitrovic heading back to Anderlecht on loan

Loan deal collapsed

Ademola Lookman joining RB Leipzig on loan

We're signing Hugill from Preston

I can feel the fear emanating around the bottom half of the table as all the other teams ask "who?"

They battered us last night and I'm also asking "who?"

Also Dawson <3

Also Guedioura, I have a massive soft spot for players who try to find the top corner from 30 yards 18 times a game

£12m too

And we're selling Ayew

And we dont even need a Frak striker!

Bakayoko is seriously crap

Lewis Grabban on loan.
Needed another striker.
Decent at this level.

Well that happened.

In other news West Hams director of player recruitment has been suspended for saying they didn't want any more African players

GSC wrote:City give up on Mahrez.

Wonder if this might be one too many times he's seen a move to a big club fall through.

Looks like Mahrez is going nuclear over this.

Also apparently Leicester refused to loan West Ham Slimani because Karen Brady took a shot at Leicesters owners in her column after they sacked Ranieri

GSC wrote:

GSC wrote:City give up on Mahrez.

Wonder if this might be one too many times he's seen a move to a big club fall through.

Looks like Mahrez is going nuclear over this.

Also apparently Leicester refused to loan West Ham Slimani because Karen Brady took a shot at Leicesters owners in her column after they sacked Ranieri

That'll please Dolph.

West Ham are a good giggle at the moment, that's for sure

Dendoncker signing would have been quite a coup if they managed to add him to Mario

Dont need to tell me how much of an idiot Brady is