Wednesday Backpasses: Knight to Bishop’s Square a Move Too

Credit to Off the Post for this lovely

Mailing this one in tonight, as with this being the Transfer Deadline Day and all, there was really no other interesting links out there for the evening. Perhaps there were, but I didn’t quite pay attention to them.

Did you?

Instead, let’s review some of the maths as the deadline came to an end. Premiership clubs spent over €475 million on players this window with practically every side showing a transfer deficit. Of the clubs that were shown to be running at a profit as the deadline neared:

Arsenal, after having sold Nasri, Cesc, and Clichy among others, chucking 13 players out of the Emirates.

Everton, which is remarkable considering the Toffees had any players to sell in the first place. Arteta–who knew Wenger would go after a player closer to the age of 30 than 20?

Aston Villa, after the hefty fees obtained from the sales of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, topping the Arse by seeing 14 players on their way.

Newcastle United, mainly for selling off José Enrique off to the Pool and picking up Manchester United’s sloppy seconds for cheap.

Stoke City, although this might change once the final figures on those Nachos Crouch and Sgt Wilson deals come through. At one point Crouch was reported to be in a closed room with Tony Pulis and others, with Tony exposing him to his dressing room “Towel Dance” should he fail to put pen to paper. Talk about pressure. Doesn’t Pulis know the Crouchie One doesn’t respond to pressure well?

Blackburn Rovers, because of the sale of Phil Jones and doing virtually nothing else but sitting back and eating chicken wings.

Wigan Athletic, which sold off a disgruntled Charles N’Zogbia for a good price and balanced that with some smart low buys and loan deals, although judgement should be reserved on whether that Shaun Maloney deal was smart or misguided.

Biggest spenders? Why of course–Swansea! Nah, Citeh followed up last year’s €141 million  splooge to be conservative, having only put in for nearly €72 million thus far, topping the big moves clubs like United and Liverpool made earlier in the transfer window. Thankfully, that Owen Hargreaves move didn’t break the sheikhs’ bank. Hargreaves. Break. It’s happened already surely, as fragile Owen hopped across town.

And speaking of hopping across town, this is something that was a bit of a theme this transfer period. While Sparktak London went after big purchases of players from other European leagues and Newcastle’s activity was played to the tune of La Marsellaise, most of the transfers took place either between Premiership clubs or were moves made for young, potential stars from one of England’s lower leagues. While one might expect those newly-promoted clubs like Swansea, QPR, and Norwich to engage in such activity, would many of us expected the number of higher profile moves between competing Prem sides?

After all, isn’t this the same Citeh that the previous season sent Craig Bellamy to Wales and let Shay Given collect a paycheck from his arse so neither would go to a fellow Premiership side? Strange window, indeed. It makes me long for the hyped Veron and Forlan flop fests United had back in the day.

In the end, things were topsy turvy. As mentioned earlier, Arsenal went in for a Spaniard once recruited to play for England who might have already played his better years in contrast to the club’s previous policy of parting with players around Arteta’s age. Tottenham actually held onto Luka Modric to our disbelief, and ‘Arry Redknapp didn’t really wheel and deal that much.

Oh, and Arsenal finally got rid of Nicky Pink Boots. If that’s not an indication of how odd this summer’s transfer market was, I’m not sure what could be.