It may be morally wrong, but that was a great deadline day

What a staggering transfer deadline day that was! In a world of financial crisis I know that I should take the line that the amount of money spent was obscene and indefensible and that football in England needs to take a long hard look at the morality of what they are doing. However, I’m a football fanatic and as hard as I try, I can’t feel anything other than excitement at what happened and how it happened.

Rumours

Over £200 million exchanged hands and some top, top players moved clubs. The rumours and counter rumours ebbed and flowed all day and seemingly done deals fell apart and other big deals came out of nowhere.

At one point bookies stopped taking bets on Blackpool’s Charlie Adam going to Manchester United. That, of course, was rubbish. He was sure to go to Liverpool wasn’t he? No he wasn’t. Then, out of the blue Tottenham come in for him at the last minute and just failed to get him. Blackpool had bought Andy Reid from Sunderland who was clearly a replacement for the departing Scot, but now Ian Holloway will have both of them at his disposal. That sounds good but I’m not sure how happy the two players will be. Presumably Reid thought he was guaranteed a first team place and he might not be and we all know Charlie Adam wanted to leave.

Staggering

The move of Fernando Torres from Liverpool to Chelsea was always likely to happen and despite some stumbling blocks along the way it went through in the end. The price was a staggering £50 million. So Torres is worth £15 million more than his Spanish strike partner David Villa then is he? Everyone thought that the package would be worth £50 million but that it would be less cash and involve a player going in the other direction. That turned out to be wrong as Liverpool had other ideas up their sleeve.

Any centre-backs looking forward to playing against Drogba and Torres?

Finalised

Liverpool finalised the deal to bring Uruguay striker Suarez to Anfield but King Kenny was keen to bring in another front player to play alongside him. Most of us thought that Nicolas Anelka would be the man returning to his former club as a make-weight in the Torres deal. I don’t think anyone suggested that the likely outcome would actually be that Liverpool would pay the second highest ever fee in English football for Newcastle’s Andy Carroll.

There is no doubt that Andy Carroll is a talented player and he has done well in his first season at the top level. He deserved his first England international cap and prior to his injury he was making a good name for himself. Having said that, £35 million really is ridiculous isn’t it? He has played a total of thirty-three Premier League games and scored fourteen goals. He has one international cap in a friendly game. At twenty-two he can still be regarded as promising, but he isn’t a kid. For the same price, Barcelona signed David Villa in the Summer. He had played one hundred and sixty-six games for Valencia in the top Spanish League and scored one hundred and eight goals. He has seventy international caps and forty-four goals. He has, of course, also won a European Championship and a World Cup.

Impressive

So madness reigned but Chelsea and Liverpool have both assembled a pretty impressive strike-force. Time will tell if the money has been well spent.

It was a truly exciting day and the best thing of all was that nobody signed Danny Graham from Watford and we are still on for the play-offs!!