The January Transfer Window - 2016

[Lineker]

Leeds have rejected a bid from Bournemouth for Lewis Cook.

[Lineker]

Napoli have rejected a £14.1m (€19m) bid from Swansea for Manolo Gabbiadini. The Premier League club are desperate to bolster their forward line but the Serie A side are holding out for £16m for the Italy international.

Rémi Garde has revealed he wants to bring Mathieu Debuchy to Aston Villa and confirmed Adama Traoré is out until March. The Arsenal right-back Debuchy could to be allowed to leave this month and Garde has spoken to Arsène Wenger about the possibility of a move.

[Benji]

Bookies slashing odds on Vardy to Chelsea, and ditto for Charlie Austen to Leicester.

[stokeriño]

Vardy to Chelsea won't happen (he's basically been linked to all the money clubs, inc. both Manchesters etc., 'just because'), but even if it did I would just be annoyed.

The amount we would be overpaying for the guy at the height of his hype, with the mid-season 'desperation' transfer mark-up, with the ENGLISH mark-up, 29 years old (next week) and therefore a) getting little meaningful resale value a couple of years down the line, and b) he'll demand super wages to begin with because it's likely his last big pay day of his career. Then what would inevitably happen is next year we'd discover he actually doesn't have a second good Premier League season in him and it'll just be another 'lol Chelsea spent *how much* on strikers who score no goals?' situation again.

Plus if Jamie Vardy became a Chelsea player it would take about three days for the quiet "isn't he actually a fucking prick though" grumbling to blow up into massive scandals that the media would suddenly be interested in.

Meanwhile I am befuddled by how Charlie Austin hasn't been picked up by any PL club yet, even at QPR's £15m asking price. Is there something wrong with him I don't know about?

[Benji]

Oh yeah, it was more about Austen than anything. I doubt Vardy is leaving at all, just couldn't post one without the other

[Adam]

Austin is also "a bit of a prick" but I doubt that's stopping teams, I think Q.P.R. just demanded a higher asking price in the summer than clubs wanted to pay considering he is out of contract at the end of this season, and he wasn't exactly pushing for a move. In fact, he might well want to stay til the end of the season and see if he can help them get promoted again.

[Gazz]

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Bookies slashing odds on Vardy to Chelsea, and ditto for Charlie Austen to Leicester.

Which bookies though?

Because it usually goes

• Sky Sports reports that 'talks' are taking place
• Sky Bet slashes odds, but never to less than 1/2, so you could make a bit of profit
• Deal never happens because it was never real to begin with
• Sky makes a profit on all the mugs thinking they were going to make some easy money

 

[Lineker]

 

The 20-year-old has signed a four-and-a-half year deal but will immediately loaned back to Grasshoppers to complete his national service.

[Gazz]

How come when Liverpool get three injuries in a match, Klopp gets flak over his tactics and training methods but when Everton get three injuries in a match, no one says a word?

It's all bollocks anyway, injury rates haven't changed for years, what has changed his injury type rates, ankle and skeletal injuries have dropped dramatically whereas muscle injuries have increased 3% per year every year since 2000. The modern game requires players to play at a higher intensity, a faster pace with more games in shorter periods of time (Liverpool played 4 times in 10 days over Christmas and have another game tomorrow), muscular tears and injuries are to be expected.

They all need to start doing some Yoga.

[Benji]

Probably because people pay less attention to Everton because they are a upper/mid-table club and not part of the big four the media are obsessed with?

[Gazz]

Liverpool aren't a top four club.

*switches on the Nerfsignal*

[Lineker]

Well, they're not. Chelsea/City/Arsenal/Utd are. Until May anyway.

[Benji]

You know what I mean though

[Nerf]

51 minutes ago, Gazz said:

How come when Liverpool get three injuries in a match, Klopp gets flak over his tactics and training methods but when Everton get three injuries in a match, no one says a word?

It's all bollocks anyway, injury rates haven't changed for years, what has changed his injury type rates, ankle and skeletal injuries have dropped dramatically whereas muscle injuries have increased 3% per year every year since 2000. The modern game requires players to play at a higher intensity, a faster pace with more games in shorter periods of time (Liverpool played 4 times in 10 days over Christmas and have another game tomorrow), muscular tears and injuries are to be expected.

They all need to start doing some Yoga.

The funniest part of that is that there's been a noticeable reduction in high intensity sprints over Christmas, and Lallana has come out and said we've been barely training for weeks. It's all been muscle recovery stuff in the sessions. But, of course, we'll take Big Sam's word as gospel because he's a good, honest, British lad.

[Baddar]

If United signed Jamie Vardy, I'd still find it very, very difficult to like the guy.

[Benji]

I don't like the guy and he already plays for my team. Love the player, but the guy himself is a knob.

[Baddar]

I know it's a bit rich coming from a guy who supports a team with a history of knobs, but still, can't like Vardy no matter how much I try. I don't even want to properly look into the origin of this "chat shit get banged" stuff for fear of disliking him even more.

[Benji]

The guy has assaulted people and isn't a particularly nice chap, nothing rich or hypocritical about it, you acknowledge your own players have been knobs. It's the old Benoit thing of separating the wrestler and the person (but to a lesser extreme, obviously), you can acknowledge someone's talented and still think they're a bad person.

Leo Messi is a tax-dodging shit, but he's still arguably one of the best players in the world.

[Gazz]

All high profile footballers are tax-dodging shits at some level.

[Lineker]

Lamine Koné to Sunderland is OFF, and Lorient aren't happy about it.

Quote

West Bromwich Albion have given a trial to Yasin Ben El-Mhanni, a 20-year-old wide attacker, whose outrageous tricks have seen him used by Nike in adverts alongside Neymar.

El-Mhanni, who is playing on a non-contract basis for non-league Lewes, will work at West Brom until Monday, when he could feature for the club’s under-21 team against Arsenal.

His form for Lewes, where he has been since last October, has drawn the attention of scouts and several clubs in the Championship are monitoring him, including Queens Park Rangers, Reading, Brighton & Hove Albion and Birmingham City. He has previously had trials at Watford and Bournemouth.

Born in west London to Moroccan parents, El-Mhanni has been affiliated to the West London AG Football Academy for the past three years.

Lewes are bottom of the Isthmian League Premier Division, six rungs below West Brom in football’s pyramid.