The 2012 January Transfer Thread

[Guest mr. potato head]

Anelka must be doing his own Hectagonal Challenge, trying for transfer rumours to each continent.

[Plubby]

Everton supposedly in for *anyone, really*

:lmao:

...yeah, like that'll ever happen.

[IAceI]

If ever there was a more glorious example of a newspaper using some old rumours and passing them off as new rumours:

'Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas has made Porto pair Falcao and Joao Moutinho is top targets for the January transfer window.'

Atletico will be fuming.

[brenchill]

Martin Keown has been pushing the rumour that Henry is coming back to Arsenal in January all afternoon on Final Score.

[Lineker]

So with Vidic out long-term and Fletcher out indefinitely, who do we reckon Utd will be signing?

[METALMAN]

Podolski

[TCO]

Modibo Maiga finally set to sign for Newcastle

I'm undecided on this. He looks like a gifted player but the whole strike thing made of come off as a knob in the summer. Still it's better than nothing. Now some major cover for defence is needed.

[IAceI]

I don't think the strike thing is anything to be too bothered about. Sessegnon did the same with PSG to force through a move to us, a lot of them just want to get to the Premier League as opposed to 'doing a Carlos Tevez'. Plus Modibo Maiga, with Kevin Anin and Martin Marvin are shining for Sochaux this season - and if you want to discuss off-the-field issues then Anin takes the cake.

He's got quite a high foul count has Maiga, but other than that he seems to be a very talented player and yet another good acquisition for Newcastle as they continue to raid the French league.

[-A-]

Demba Ba went on strike to force the move to West Ham, too.

[Colly]

I believe Jonas and Ben Arfas moves to us were slightly dodgy too. We love it.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Jonas bought out his contract before signing for us (which is as dodgy as it comes, with us probably handing the cash over to him) but not only that, we ended up paying £6m in compensation to them on top of that. So overall he ended up costing us something like £9m+, which is a lot different from the cheap/free transfer that we thought we had when we first signed him. He's still a good utility player, but we clearly overspent on him

Ben Arfa had a bust up with his manager and decided to come over to Newcastle before the club said that he could (that's the story if you're a Newcastle fan, if you're not then it looks like we clearly tapped him up) He ended up having to go back to France until we negotiated a deal, but we practically made him an offer he couldn't refuse so he had no intention of ever playing for Marseilles again.

We should really stop this style of negotiation, even though we're getting players for dirt cheap (I still can't understand how we got Ben Arfa for £7m) we stand a chance of never getting another player from established clubs ever again. Just imagine the backlash if we tried to sign another player from Marseilles, or Majorca. Of course, all of these negotiations have made the player look like the bad guy (Jonas buying out his own contract, Maiga striking, Ben Arfa threatening to retire) so maybe we just have a great PR team

[METALMAN]

No, you have the worst PR team.

[Colly]

I don't think we have a PR team, just Llambias telling journos stuff while pissed.

[stokeriño]

Yeah, if you had a great PR team none of these stories would come out at all.

[Crybaby Bunting]

What stories? I can't believe you're accusing Newcastle of some dodgy transfers!

All hail glorious leader!

[IAceI]

I think anyone who doesn't think that some tapping up goes on at pretty much all clubs is probably thinking wishfully rather than logically. Sunderland will have tapped up players to a degree and had players tapped up from them, that's how it works, and it's generally the agent doing it all for them. When Lorik Cana signed for us from Marseille within about 3 hours, I'm pretty sure Bruce and his agent had the contract worked out sometime before that.

And basically any form of talking about an opposing player these days can be seen as tapping up, phrases such as (and I won't name names ) "I don't want to talk about him but he's a top, top player. Really t'riffic." Well surely that can also be construed as tapping up?

As far as I'm concerned, Newcastle are just working an untapped market in the French league, where virtually every club is a selling club if a Premier League team comes calling, and when a player wants to leave then his team often have their hands tied because of it, so the price can be driven down. I mean, I rate Ben Arfa but if he wanted to go then his team really didn't have much choice. It will be different when Stade Rennes sell M'Vila (after Euro 2012 I assume) because people know he's a highly rated player so will fetch about a £30m price tag you'd assume, even though he's stated his desire to leave. Ben Arfa, Maiga etc. aren't in the same league as a player like that, so can force through a transfer a bit more easily.

If anything it's just smart from Newcastle, but I don't believe they're conducting their business any differently to any other team. They just have a greater penchant for making themselves look a bit daft in the public eye.

[Colly]

Hey, take that back you... nah, you're right.

[Lineker]

Cliftonville striker Rory Donnelly is poised to move to Swansea after the Reds accepted an increased bid from the Premier League club.

Swansea originally tabled an offer of £100,000 for the exciting 19-year-old.

Donnelly will now discuss personal terms with the Welsh club and he is expected to complete the switch in the January transfer window.

Tuesday night's League Cup defeat by Coleraine is likely to have been Donnelly's last game for the club.

Scouts from English and Scottish clubs have watched Donnelly in recent weeks, with League One side Brentford also making a bid for the teenager.

"There are a lot of talented players in Northern Ireland and he's one of them," said Swansea boss Brendan Rodgers last week.

[Baddar]

''Chelsea to sell Torres in January'' - To say he hasn't had the best time of it is a massive understatement, but still... surely not?

[Starvinho]

He can come United, we'll do a straight swap for him with Bebe