It has been all quiet in the Western front so far in the January transfer window, despite the press getting their money’s worth of speculation and rumors. Many of the bigger Premier League sides are in dire need of additions and many have reported to prepare hefty bids already in January, even if the usual blockbusters are done in the summer.
Chelsea got their transfer ban lifted early and the team has struggled as of late. Manchester United is thinning by the day, with Harry Maguire now picking up a knock. City and Pep Guardiola have had to field players out of position throughout the season. Not to mention the teams with new managers, Arsenal, Everton and West Ham. Something is bound to happen in the transfer front, already in January.
Dortmund in Bundesliga got the ball rolling, by acquiring highly touted youngster Erling Haaland from RB Salzburg, while Liverpool snatched up Japanese international Takumi Minamino from the same club. Juventus soon followed suit and signed Swedish winger Dejan Kulusevski from another Serie A side Parma, but left him on loan until the summer. While January is usually less active in the English Premier League than the media would want us to believe, there has been some spectacular transfers made in the past.
Possibly the biggest of them all was completed quite recently by who else but Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool. The cornerstone of their recent success, Virgil van Dijk arrived on the first day of January 2018 with a massive £75M transfer fee, but no one can argue he has been well worth it and more. Funded by the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £142M, Liverpool made a fantastic tradeoff with abundance of extra cash to spill later on.
Other notable transfers into the Premier League in January include players like Aymeric Laporte of Manchester City, who arrived from Athletic Bilbao for £57.2M and Arsenal’s talisman striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, bought from Dortmund for £56M. Undoubtedly key players for their respective former teams, the January transfers do not come cheap but no one can question the price paid was well worth it for the above mentioned trio.
The January transfer speculation features names like Jadon Sancho, Gareth Bale, Timo Werner and Edinson Cavani, but the market is rather dry for other big names unless the buying team is willing to cough up double the price – and they just might be.
