EPL Ramblings & Transfer Round-Up

By: Wayne Farry | February 3rd, 2009

So it’s finally over. The end of some of the most exciting, albeit slightly fictitious reporting on Sky Sports.

Finally, Arsenal confirmed the signing of Andrei Arshavin from Zenit St. Petersburg today. After weeks of painstakingly boring negotiations (for the watching fans at least) both clubs finally came to an agreement for the tiny Russian captain. Speaking to the media today he revealed that he can speak English, using many recognisable words such as ’soon’, ‘Gunner’ and ‘fit’. Fair play Andy! Good signing for Arsenal, who at the moment only have one match winning player fit in the form of Robin Van Persie. If Arshavin can recreate this sort of form consistently for the Gunners then they’ve got a potential legend on their hands.

Spurs capped off their transfer window activities with the re-signing of Robbie Keane from Liverpool, a good move for him and Spurs, without a doubt. He never settled at Anfield, which can be blamed entirely on Rafa. He never gave the Ireland captain a chance, even when Keane scored 3 in 2 EPL matches against Arsenal and Bolton, Benitez dropped him to the bench for the next match. Awful, absolutely awful man-management. But Keano’s back at the club he loves, or might love but certainly not his childhood club. The first thing that needs to be done is to help Keane regain his confidence, and there’s no better man for that than ‘Arry.

Everton signed Man City’s superflop Jo on loan for the rest of the season. Maybe he wants to see what it’s like not scoring in another city? Maybe I’m being too harsh, he is only 21 and could still come good. But when a club spends around €20M on a striker you expect goals, and quite a lot. Everton also tried to get Schalke 04’s want-away striker Kevin Kuranyi on loan for the rest of the season, but left it until the final 3 hours of the window to let anyone know, nice move.

Here are some of my favourite signings and some that I think are going to end in puddles of tears. A lot of these are pretty obvious, so I’d imagine you’ll agree with quite a few of them.

First off, some good ones, Carlo Cudicini from Chelsea to Spurs. This is a great deal for Spurs, they’ve got one of the best ‘keepers in the EPL who must be dying to prove himself after years of sitting on the bench at the Bridge. Another good signing is Shay Given moving from Newcastle to Manchester City. If the rumours are to be believed the fee involved was around €7M. I think that’s an absolute bargain for a keeper of Given’s quality. I honestly think that if it wasn’t for him Newcastle could have been relegated years ago. He’s so agile and City’s defenders can be confident that if they mess up (which isn’t unheard of) he’ll be there to pick up the pieces. The last signing that I think was pretty good was Newcastle’s signing of the Wigan full-back/midfielder Ryan Taylor. That signing’s good for Newcastle if only for the fact that it rules out him scoring against them.

Now, some bad ones. Firstly I’ve gone with Julien Faubert’s loan move from The Hammers to Real Madrid. It’s amazing for him, he even said he thought it was a joke when he first heard of the interest, and it’s a great opportunity for him, although I think he’ll fail miserably. Another bad signing, in my opinion, is Pascal Chimbonda’s return to Spurs from Sunderland. Chimbonda is in no way a bad player but he’s nowhere near the quality player he was at Wigan and his attitude is appalling too. Maybe ‘Arry’s bringing back former players to try to return the club to a state of familiarity, but bringing Chimbonda back is a step too far I think.

That’s my transfer round-up done. Nice to see that a relatively exciting month can be condensed down to a relatively boring blog entry, what an age we live in!

That’s all for now. I’ll finish up with the breaking news that David Ginola, Ossie Ardiles and Sol Campbell have been spotted around Spurs training ground. Sounds far-fetched, but anything’s possible with Spurs.