The January Transfer Window - 2019

[Lineker]

Adrien Rabiot will join Barcelona on a free transfer in the summer.

[Lineker]

Huddersfield have completed the signing of Crystal Palace midfielder Jason Puncheon on loan until the end of the season.
 

[FLiam]

In more 'football is broken' news, Manchester City's Brahim Diaz is on the verge of joining Real Madrid for a modest £22m.

[Meacon Keaton]

Is Miguel Almiron being linked to any Prem teams? I think a lot of MLS people expected him to get some attention from the mid to lower table clubs.

[FLiam]

37 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Is Miguel Almiron being linked to any Prem teams? I think a lot of MLS people expected him to get some attention from the mid to lower table clubs.

He was heavily linked with Newcastle a month or so ago but it seems to have gone a bit quiet on that front.

I think Newcastle's head of recruitment went over to the US to discuss the possibility of signing him as well.

[Colly]

Turned out they wanted a higher fee than £30 of Sports Direct vouchers. 

[DavidMarrio]

1 hour ago, Colly said:

Turned out they wanted a higher fee than £30 of Sports Direct vouchers. 

Should have threw in one of the massive bags and a mug

[Colly]

That's the deadline day final offer. 

[hugobomb]

28 minutes ago, Colly said:

That's the deadline day final offer. 

Only when it gets the last few hours do they break out the House of Fraser discounts

[FLiam]

Quote

Bayern Munich will try to lure Callum Hudson-Odoi away from Chelsea by giving him Arjen Robben's shirt number, reports The Sun.

The Bundesliga champions have made Hudson-Odoi their primary January transfer target and have already seen two offers rejected by Chelsea.

However, Bayern hope to force through a deal by offering Hudson-Odoi the No.10 shirt worn by Robben, who is due to leave the club at the end of the season.

What utter nonsense.

[Hobo]

If I were a professional footballer I would only accept a really high shirt number. 

Ideally the #99 shirt

[Gazz]

I'd want 888 because it would give me an excuse to get fat enough to wear a shirt where it fits across my back.

[FLiam]

Quote

Former Real Madrid defender Pepe has turned down an offer to join Arsenal, reports L’Equipe.

The 35-year-old Portugal international is a free-agent after leaving Besiktas but appears to have decided to join Monaco, who are managed by Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.

Thank fuck for that. We desperately need a centre-half but I'd rather us bring Robert Pires out of retirement to play there than Pepe. 

[Hobo]

5 hours ago, Gazz said:

I'd want 888 because it would give me an excuse to get fat enough to wear a shirt where it fits across my back.

And you'll have subtitles 

[TCO]

5 hours ago, Hobo said:

If I were a professional footballer I would only accept a really high shirt number. 

Ideally the #99 shirt

You're not allowed to do that in the Premier League. They've rejected a fair amount of requests. It's a vague rule but you're only allowed be in and around the total number of players registered with numbers. Only high ones typically you'd see are youth players who were initially registered in addition to the squad. Commonly found at big clubs who give their whole youth team numbers for league cup games. They won't make you change though, which explains TAA's #66 or Iheanacho's #72 at City. My guess would be the latter is the highest ever number and definitely the highest that saw more than 1 season

I like squad number triva btw!

[9 to 5]

High number shirts in football I really dislike.

[TCO]

I hate them too, there's no need for them.

I like what Spain does. Squad of 25, has to be 1-25. Keeepers have to wear 1, 13, 25.

Italy is basically the opposite. Starting XIs look like an NFL team's numbers!

[Naitch]

I do quite like the idea of 77 being a non-first choice number 7, and likewise for all the multiples of 11.

[TCO]

There's a lad from back home who writes a blog about squad numbers.

https://www.squadnumbers.com/

It's really cool if you're interested in that sort of thing!

[FLiam]

We should all agree that these numbers are unacceptable for goalkeepers though:

Spoiler

Although it was mildly amusing when Ivan Zamarano couldn't have the number 9 shirt as it was occupied by Ronaldo at the time, so he improvised:

Spoiler