Deadline day round-up

Well that's the transfers finished now until the summer and as usual it was a pretty crazy Monday. In total during the January transfer window a total of £218,525,000 was spent - far more than both the last January window and even the summer window!

As we all know our beloved Tottenham needed a striker, really really needed a striker. Things were looking very positive in this respect with the breaking news on Sunday night that we had had a number of bids for top striker in La Liga rejected. This list included:
Sergio Aguero  (apparently £38.5m rejected!)
Alvaro Negrado
Fernando Llorente
and Giuseppe Rossi


All these bids were rejected but It did create a lot of excitement In spurs circles and everyone dared to hope that another last minute buy could be on the cards. Even after Aguero signed a new contract at Atletico Madrid there was intense rumour from all sorts of ITKs that we were once again going after Rossi.
Unfortunately, like Sol Campbells masculinity, a striker failed to materialise. Tottenham were however busy on deadline day - no doubt trying to do a deal for a striker but also looking in other directions.

Harry confirmed early on that we had bid for the one...the only...Phil Neville.......Really? Is Phil Neville really that great that we had to put precious minutes on deadline day into making a poultry bid of £1.5m (Edit. Apparently now saying it was £500,000) for him. Everton were never going to accept It and they were never going to accept that much.
Neville probably isn't worth much more these days but it was always going to take a lot of money for them to sell their captain, there really was no point bidding for him. I'm actually kinda relieved, I'm sure he would have done a good job but he doesn't exactly scream "MOVING FORWARD" hence why he's playing at Everton.

As usual we were involved at the death but once again not for a star striker but for Charlie Adam. I'm not really sure where that came from, It was more surprising than a Taiwanese ladyboy who had 'promised she was the real McCoy'. Once again I have to ask questions here. Yes he Is a very good player, this Is further backed up due to the fact that both Liverpool and Man Utd were interested.

But do we really need yet another midfield option? He is primarily a central midfielder so lets take a look at that. Modric wouldn't lose his place so we are looking at a midfield partner for him - In that position we currently have Huddlestone, Palacios, Jenas, Sandro and not to forget VdV. I would quite happily have Adam in place of Jenas, I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if he left the club but would you put him ahead of Hudd? No not really, I know he's injured but that's not the point. If your going to spend £10m on a player you should have better ambitions for them rather than them being an expensive bench warmer.

And that was It, deadline day brought us bids for Phil Neville and Charlie Adam. Both rejected and myself personally feeling a little dejected when I went to bed. Not just because we didn't sign anyone and not just because those we tried to sign don't exactly get the blood pumping. No, mostly because of the business done elsewhere.

Notably by Chelsea and Liverpool. Chelsea spending over £70m on Fernando Torres and David Luiz Is a massive signal of intent - they have been pretty awful of late and this throws them straight back into the title race.
Liverpool spent in excess of £50m on Andy Carrol and Luis Suarez, again another huge signal of intent and they now find themselves firmly back into the race for fourth spot. I won't go into the fact that Liverpool must have someone slightly deranged at the club (Ahem. Comolli?) to spent £36m on Carroll - well over the top In my opinion.

This worries me because of our own ambitions, I think we can all agree that any dreams of a Premiership title are well and truly over and following our FA Cup exit we will now find ourselves focused on fourth spot (keeping the Champions league separate before you say). This was always going to be hard but Its made even harder because we have sent out Keane, Bentley, Dos Santos and Jamie O'Hara on loan and not really got anyone In to replace them. Most notably Keane. He was always going to go to some extent and I'm not opposed to that but as a strike force we are now limited to Defoe, Pav and Crouch who have 6 league goals between them this season.

During the window we brought In Pienaar and khumalo. I won't say too much on Khumalo as I don't know much about him but as I'm sure you well know by now I think Pienaar Is just a lesser Kranjcar - one plus Is that Niko is still a Spurs player, hopefully he can get himself back into the team!

Poll results! The latest poll was 'Who would you prefer us to sign?' (check out the new one at the top right of the page), the results were:
Hulk - 40%
Suarez - 20%
Someone else - 20%
Forlan - 10%
Fabiano - 10%

Interestingly no-one voted for Andy Carroll.