Upping the ante, at all costs

Sunday 2 September 2012

If a successful transfer campaign means buying well and selling better while strengthening the team and addressing genuine needs, this was a decidedly mixed summer for the top sides in the Premier League.

Javi Garcia is introduced to the Etihad crowd Photograph: Reuters

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Chelsea bought like it was 2003 and Roman Abramovich was the still wide-eyed billionaire happily signing the cheques.

The total outlay this time was around £75 million (in his early days at Stamford Bridge, he broke the £100m mark, so I guess this is more restrained). The theme has been smallish, skillful, creative younger types (Eden Hazard, Oscar, Marko Marin, Victor Moses) to replace the brawn (Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Romelu Lukaku) of yesteryear. All good, except for two things.

With so many attacking midfielder/winger types, you wonder how you're going to keep them all happy. And, ultimately, Chelsea's short-term future is in the hands of Fernando Torres (or, if he gets hurt or continues playing the way he has for the bast part of three years, Daniel Sturridge). The much needed upgrade/alternative to the £50m man never materialised, which means Chelsea will likely have to hit the January sales.What of Manchester City, the Premier League's other free-spenders? For most of the summer, there was nothing outwith the signing of Jack Rodwell, much to the frustration of Roberto Mancini. And then, in the window's final 24 hours, a quartet of newcomers – Scott Sinclair and Maicon for the wide areas, Matija Nastasic and Javi Garcia to stiffen up the backbone. All told, £55m out, but at least City did OK on the selling front, clawing back some £20m for Stefan Savic, Nigel de Jong, Emmanuel Adebayor and Adam Johnson, four guys who were likely to contribute nothing this year. No real upgrade, just some extra depth, but then that's probably all they needed.Across town, Manchester United made the biggest headlines in shelling out £24m on Robin van Persie. Throw in Shinji Kagawa, and Sir Alex Ferguson has a kaleidoscope of options up front. The issue, though, is in midfield and another transfer window has come and gone without it being addressed. Maybe Tom Cleverley will grow up overnight. Maybe Anderson will stop being an injury-prone underachiever. Maybe Phil Jones will learn to play the middle of the park, despite his centre-half skill set. Maybe Paul Scholes will defy time (again). Maybe Darren Fletcher will go back to being the player he was pre-injury and illness. But maybe Sir Alex would have been better turning one of those maybes into something approaching certainty. A partner for Michael Carrick seems more of a priority than collecting attacking weapons.At the Emirates it was another summer where the net spend remained close to break even. The signings – Olivier Giroud, Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla – came early and without too much fanfare (though Santi looks the real deal) and they were offset by the departures of Van Persie and Alex Song. You can debate the merits of the club's fiscally prudent policy for van Persie and maybe Song at £16m is a good price. But not replacing Song and expecting one out of Aaron Ramsey, Abou Diaby and Francis Coquelin to fill the Cameroonian's boots seems a stretch: the first two aren't holding players, the latter simply isn't that good.Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers apparently had a transfer budget of £20m this summer... and that was INCLUDING wages. Reportedly, he only found this out in August, though that seems hard to believe.Either way, he freshened up the side (Joe Allen, Fabio Borini, Oussama Assaidi) with some bright youngsters and rolled the dice that he's getting the 2010-11 model Nuri Sahin rather than the forlorn benchwarmer we saw at Real Madrid this year. Shipping out Andy Carroll may or may not make sense; going into the season with just Luis Suarez as a striking option probably does not. It's fair to say that – budgets notwithstanding – Liverpool fans were entitled to expect a bit more.Newcastle do deserve a nod, however. They didn't do much but then they didn't need to, since they hung on to their top players and added an extra defensive midfielder in Vurnon Anita as well. Sometimes, inactivity is the best activity.Tottenham get high marks in the "sales" department. A total of £57m for guys who didn't want to stay (Luka Modric), made far too much money (Rafael van der Vaart) or simply spent most of their time rooted to the bench (Vedran Corluka, Nico Kranjcar, Sebastian Bassong, Steven Pienaar and Giovani dos Santos) isn't bad at all. Andre Villas-Boas has the goalkeeper he wanted (Hugo Lloris), the defender he needed (Jan Vertonghen) and the striker he craved (Adebayor), plus a trio of midfielders who, at the very least, offer options – (Gylfi Sigurdsson, Clint Dempsey, Moussa Dembele).Spurs have effectively added five or six starters while losing just Modric and they've come out £10m ahead. That's not too bad, which is why they get the provisional top mark for transfer activity among the bigger clubs. Final report cards will, of course, only be available down the road. Because hindsight is always 20-20.Speaking of hindsight, you wonder how quickly the folks who represent Radamel Falcao were on the phone to Abramovich's people Friday night. The joke doing the rounds at half-time at the Stade Louis II – where Falcao's hat- trick had put Atletico Madrid 3-0 up against Chelsea in the European SuperCup – was that Abramovich was going to sign Falcao during the interval and send him on for Chelsea in the second half.It summed up the evening. Falcao, right now, is easily one of the top five centre-forwards in the world and arguably the most complete. A dead-eye finisher with both feet, he's also good in the air and can spot a pass, but what stands out most is his movement: he seems to disappear and then materialise in a wide open position a split second later.This is the third straight summer Chelsea have been offered the Colombian striker and, each time, they've passed. All that is happening is that he's scoring goals for someone else and his price keeps rising. By the time he lands at Stamford Bridge, who knows how much he'll cost?

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Upping the ante, at all costs

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