There Is Only One Sinnacle

Going team by team here.

Arsenal

Park Chu-young (Monaco, undisclosed), Andre Santos (Fenerbahce, undisclosed), Per Mertesacker (Werder Bremen, undisclosed), Yossi Benayoun (Chelsea, season loan), Mikel Arteta (Everton, £10million).

Great news Arsenal signed some players…..on the cheap of course. The reality however is if this was fantasy soccer and someone offered Benayoun and Arteta for Fabregas and Nasri you’d be laughed out of the room. With that said I like all the players Arsenal have signed but are they a better team than a year ago? The answer is no and between the five players it adds up to what they got for Nasri never mind that Fabregas money. I can understand Newcastle pocketing some of that Andy Carroll money, Arsenal I can’t.

It’s also telling Chelsea let Benayoun go on loan to Arsenal. If Chelsea considered Arsenal a threat there would be no way they would let a player go on loan. Arsenal have become the new Liverpool where their fans would be pleased if they kept a Champions League spot going into next season.

Aston Villa

Alan Hutton(Tottenham, undisclosed), Jermaine Jenas (Tottenham, season loan).

I’m a big fan of the buy low theory where you take a chance on players who have fell down the peaking order. I think it was a good piece of business for them to pick up Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas from Tottenham. Each player can put in a shift out there and while Jenas never became the player people figured he’d be there is enough there for a club like Aston Villa to see if a change of clubs is what a player like Jenas needs.

Blackburn

Scott Dann (Birmingham, undisclosed).

After being linked with the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool Scott Dann must of grined and bared it when he put pen to paper on his Blackburn deal. If it keeps going like this Dann may be playing Championship football again next season.

Chelsea

Raul Meireles (Liverpool, undisclosed)

Everyone knows I’m a fan of Raul Meireles. He got to where he is through hard work, he wasn’t a natural talent coming up through the racks and will be a perfect fit for Chelsea.

Everton

Players in: Denis Stracqualursi (Tigre, season loan), Royston Drenthe (Real Madrid, season loan).

They sold Mikel Arteta and Jermaine Beckford for 14 million and brought in two players on loan. Really all you need to know.

Fulham

Zdenek Grygera (Juventus, free), Orlando Sa (unattached), Bryan Ruiz (FC Twente, undisclosed).

I can not believe Harry Redknapp went to Holland to see Ruiz play Benfica and decided not to make a move for him. Fulham may of picked up the best player on deadline day with Bryan Ruiz who will find English football a lot different than Dutch football but should produce goals. Looking forward to see how Ruiz will adapt to the English game. Exciting signing for Fulham I must say.

Liverpool

Sebastian Coates (Nacional, undisclosed), Craig Bellamy (Manchester City, undisclosed).

I understand the Bellamy signing and more importantly it’s ok to have one head case on the team as it keeps everyone else loose, having two kills your team however. Provided Bellamy is ok with coming off the bench and starting 15-20 times then he’ll make for a useful signing. Even still coming off the bench is much better then his place with Manchester City where they wouldn’t even let him into the stadium. No risk, high reward. Also love the Coates signing, if he can shine at the highest levels of South American football then at some point he should translate that into European football.

Now onto Raul Meireles leaving Liverpool. Raul Meireles did what he needed to do and Liverpool did the right thing in selling a player who wasn’t going to be happy. Meireles read the tea leeves and it wasn’t hard to figure out he was going to be the odd man out. He wasn’t a King Kenny signing and over the summer he sees Liverpool spend 30 million in two players who play in the same area of the pitch as he does. A coach needs to justify that spending so you know Henderson and Adam will get every chance to start, then you have the golden boy Steven Gerrard coming back and they need to fit him in somewhere. That equals to Meireles coming off the bench which equals to him handing a transfer request.

On a side note I wish the press would ask these two questions.

1) Can someone ask Mourinho what he thinks about Villa-Boas joining Chelsea. I want that answer.

2) How in the world do you get a groin infection? Just saying that hurts me. Did the doctor not wash his hands or something….what is the back story here cause I’ve never heard anyone get a grion infection before.

I also love how Liverpool fans the second Raul Meireles leaves start bad mouthing him. Think about it for a second like a normal person and not think these millionaire football players are robots without emotions. You go to work for a company where everyday you bust your ass in an environment where most of your co-workers have quit on they boss (let’s call this boss Roy) yet day after day you produce good work. How are you thanked for this? With a raise….no of course not but even worse the company brings in two new people who most likely are being paid more to work in your position. Well, if that doesn’t cause a person to update the resume I don’t know what does.

I’ve also wanted to get this off my chest for awhile but I see Liverpool fans offering up their daughters to Luis Suarez cause they love him so much. Great player, let’s get that out of the way. In Suarez however you have a player who while I’m not going to say dives I will say goes to ground easy, who gets mad at the refs and pouts when I call goes against him and is a bit of a pretty boy. You know who that sounds like?

Cristiano Ronaldo!!!! Who Liverpool fans could not stand but Suarez walks on water.

Manchester City

Owen Hargreaves

I like this signing for Manchester City. What downside is there really? I’ve read all the jokes on Hargraves but a club like City needs a player who has won titles like Hargraves. If he can play the role Patrick Viera played last year, City are a better club for it. I still remember Portugal-England in WC 2006 where the only two players I feared on England where Aaron Lennon and Owen Hargraves. Every other English player played like they were scared of the moment. Hargraves was also the only English player to score during penalty kicks.

NEWCASTLE

Davide Santon (Inter Milan, undisclosed)

They badly need a striker but those don’t exactly fall from the sky when you are a club like Newcastle. I like Santon and he is well worth the risk. He fell out of favour at Inter and will now go to Newcastle where there will be less pressure and less questions wondering why he hasn’t progessed after such a great start to his career.

Q.P.R

Joey Barton (Newcastle, free), Luke Young (Aston Villa, undisclosed), Armand Traore (Arsenal, undisclosed), Tommaso Trani (unattached), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City, undisclosed).

It’s like QPR is trying to sign the England B team. They also signed Rio little brother at the deadline. It should give the club a boost and a belief that they may be able to stay up this season.

Stoke

Wilson Palacios (Tottenham, undisclosed), Cameron Jerome (Birmingham, undisclosed), Peter Crouch (Tottenham, initial £10million).

When you are a club who lives and dies by the long ball and set plays it makes sense to go out there and sign Peter Crouch. I also like Palacios and think it was smart for clubs like Stoke and Aston Villa to pick off players just handing around at Tottenham and not playing much.

Sunderland

Nicklas Bendtner (Arsenal, season loan).

I’ve just happy those Bendtner to Porto rumours weren’t true.

Tottenham

Scott Parker (West Ham, undisclosed)

Signing Scott Parker for 5 million is a good piece of business but you know what else would of been a good piece of business? Selling Modric for 40 million! How in the world do you turn that down? Now you are going to have a player fuming over the millions of dollars he is missing out on not going to Chelsea. Tottenham will be lucky for Modric is worth 20 million in two years time. The problem I see all the time with English clubs is that they think their players can’t be replaced. Like the world will come to an end if Modric got sold. Every club should have of a list of players on other teams they would go out and sign if they sell a player. For example Modric to Chelsea for 40 million, call up Lyon and offer 15 million for Miralem Pjanić who could easily turn into a new Modric down the line but no Tottenham decides to hang on to a player who clearly doesn’t want to be there. On a side note…actually an end note since it’s the last point I’m making Roma look to be an interesting team this season. It will be interesting to see how their new players fit into the club.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2011 at 11:12 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.