Craven Cottage Newsround

Ashley Cole

Arsenal to Chelsea, Gallas plus £5m

William Gallas

Chelsea to Arsenal, swap with Cole
At last!

If anything this helps Arsenal more than Chelsea: they get a one of the game’s better centre-backs for one of the game’s better left-backs, and five million pounds too.  

You can argue all you like that Cole is the better player, but it could reasonably be said that the spine of the team  (up the middle) is where games are won and lost and that a good CB is more useful than a good LB.  And Arsenal needed a centre-back very badly.  So while they got to the Champions League final last year with Flamini at left-back, with Senderos injured there was a huge hole in the middle.  Not any more.  Gallas is good, and with Toure will instantly form one of the league’s best and most dynamic defensive partnerships.  

I’m glad they got this sorted and didn’t get hung up over a few million pounds that wouldn’t necessarily get them what they needed.  This deal does, and it’s a winner.

As for Chelsea, they now have a resurgent Wayne Bridge and Ashley Cole too.   I’m sure they’ll sort something out, but I don’t know that this deal helps them especially.  In real terms how many games does Bridge win or lose a year?  Cole?  The difference?  Yes, Cole has proved himself the better of the two, but I really don’t know that the difference is all that big, and the loss of Gallas potentially is.  Roman’s Chelsea are going Galactico, which has to be a good thing for the rest of the division.  

Andy Cole

Man City to Portsmouth, £500,000

Assuming Cole’s gone to be a reserve and knows this, this is a lovely pickup for Pompey.   He presumably still knows where the goal is, and presumably has some of that speed and instinct that made him the goal-machine he once was.  So in times of trouble ‘Arry can summon his sniper from the bench and hope for a late strike.  And if it doesn’t work, well, £500,000 doesn’t appear to be much for his employers, so definitely a gamble worth taking.

Steed Malbranque

Fulham to Tottenham, £2m

Pass.

Wayne Routledge

Tottenham to Fulham, loan

At this point Routledge must feel that he has something to prove.  When he left Palace Simon Jordan apparantly told him he wouldn’t get regular football, and so it has proved.   Routledge has spent time at Portsmouth on loan too, and is at that point in his career where he’s either going to turn a corner or disappoint again.   I’m hopeful he can follow a Jermaine Pennant career path, but part of me says that if Martin Jol doesn’t really rate him, how good can he be?  

Jason Euell

Charlton to Middlesbrough, undisc

Hard to see what this does for ‘boro.  Euell’s a functioning footballer and he won’t let anyone down, but this isn’t the sort of signing that’ll transform Southgate’s team.   But as a cog in the machine he’s useful and adds depth to the squad.

Javier Mascherano, Carlos Tévez

Corinthians to West Ham, undisc
This has troubled a lot of people and I can see why.   If, as is reported, MSI (is that right?) have brokered this all for their own gain, the two players can leave Upton Park for £30 million or so each at any time, and the profits will go to MSI and not West Ham.  So are we effectively saying that the players are employed by an investment company, and loaned to West Ham for a while?  Then, assuming they play well, big club comes in and ponies up the cash, West Ham are left with nothing but points and memories.  Which they’ll be pleased with, but as guinea pigs in this extraordinary new way of doing business they must feel somewhat confused.    It would almost be better if there was a Russian oligarch involved (although saying that, MSI’s cash flow could be Russian in origin, nobody quite knows).

Anyway, in the here and now this is great for the Hammers.   Tevez has always struck me as a sort of a deluxe edition of Milan Barros.  Mascherano is the sort of player who should take to the Premiership too.  It’s a fantastic turn of events, but as noted, one that bears watching because it smells damn fishy.

Niko Kranjcar

Hajduk Split to Portsmouth, undisc

Had a good world cup and should be a good signing.  For whatever reason, Eastern Europeans don’t seem to have settled in the Premiership:  Igor Stimac was great for Derby for a while, Bilic played well for a few clubs, but transfer records are littered with failed Russians and Romanians (sorry, going all Daily Mail on you) and every signing has to be viewed through that prism.  But from what I remember Kranjcar looks well suited to the English game, and as son of the national team’s coach should bring all kinds of intangible pluses with him.   I say intangible because I have no idea what they might be, but it seems like a plausible theory.

Kevin Kilbane

Everton to Wigan, undisc

Bleugh. Quite a good player once, but he should be at West Brom or somewhere by now.

Jan Kromkamp

Liverpool to PSV Eindhoven, undisc

Well that didn’t work out, did it?   And why are all transfers undisc these days?

Antoine Sibierski

Man City to Newcastle, undisc
Oh dear.  Fair player, but Newcastle must have hoped for more.

Pascal Cygan

Arsenal to Villarreal, £2m

Hmmm.  Never settled really and seemed to make the Arsenal defence nervous whenever he was on the pitch.   He must have had something about him for Wenger to have bought him in the first place, and it’s that something that Villarreal will be trying to tap into, but he certainly didn’t look like the answer to anything while he was in England.  This has to go down as more good business for Wenger, a good £2 million earned.