This transfer window ......

[lythamblue]

...... would have been an absolute damp squib without us and Real Madrid!

I don't know what the total figures are for deals but if you took us out of it, it would have been pennies in comparison to previous seasons. The top four spent next to nothing and Clubs who were expected to spend, like Spurs, also spent little.

The only real activity, from a player numbers point of view, has come from the clubs you would expect to be fighting it out at the bottom ..... who seem to have bought in loads of Championship quality players on an ethos of quantity rather than quality.

However, for us it has been brilliant .... and we seem to be in the right place at the right time, being the only ones with an 'expansionist' policy. Or the only ones who can afford such a policy anyway. Shame we are not in the Champions League, as if we were, I think we could have virtually had our pick of most players on the planet during this summer window.

Finally ..... I used to hate and dread transfer windows. They were always about who we might lose rather than who we might get and I used to count the days till they were over in the often vain hope that we would somehow manage to hang on to the likes of Anelka, Distin, Berkovic, SWP, Micah Richards etc, just hopng that some top 4 club with cash wouldn't come in and take them away from us ...... It all felt so powerlessly frustrating.

Now ..... I love transfer windows!!

Can't wait for the next one!

[Ted Hughes]

A transfer window in the past was for us like being Vanessa Phelps at an orgy in the playboy mansion; plenty of action going on around us but no way we were going to be involved in any of it unless it was to get something shoved up our arse & laughed at.

[Dameerto]

According to SSN we account for over a quarter of the cash spent this window.

[lythamblue]

A transfer window in the past was for us like being Vanessa Phelps at an orgy in the playboy mansion; plenty of action going on around us but no way we were going to be involved in any of it unless it was to get something shoved up our arse & laughed at.

Ted .... that's basically what I was trying to say ..... but you put it a lot better than I could!!

Let's hope those days are gone forever.

Now we have to get rid of the scenario's where for instance ..... to us, the Champs league was all about us huddled round our telly's on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, hoping that manyoo lose.

Also, hopefully .... we won't have to all become Arse, Chelski and L'pool fans after Christmas in the Premiership either.

Yep, I love transfer windows ...... I love money ..... and it's now getting a lot easier to love City!

[CityFanFromRome]

Finally ..... I used to hate and dread transfer windows. They were always about who we might lose rather than who we might get and I used to count the days till they were over in the often vain hope that we would somehow manage to hang on to the likes of Anelka, Distin, Berkovic, SWP, Micah Richards etc, just hopng that some top 4 club with cash wouldn't come in and take them away from us ...... It all felt so powerlessly frustrating.

Now ..... I love transfer windows!!

Can't wait for the next one!

I agree with your feelings here, this wondow has been exciting for us and many others will follow, I don't see the other clubs coming into loads of cash anytime soon and even if they did, I doubt they could outbid us in a bidding war, so once we get into the CL we will only have to choose which players we want and go get them (well, not Messi perhaps, but everyone else yes). About the underlined parts, I know how that feels now too, I'm a fairly recent City fan, started following City when Sven came so I never saw that kind of windows with the Blues but I saw it this summer with Roma, the other team I support, and it's truly frustrating to see your rivals buy players and you being forced to only hope you won't sell any.

[irblinx]

...... would have been an absolute damp squib without us and Real Madrid!

I don't know what the total figures are for deals but if you took us out of it, it would have been pennies in comparison to previous seasons. The top four spent next to nothing and Clubs who were expected to spend, like Spurs, also spent little.

The only real activity, from a player numbers point of view, has come from the clubs you would expect to be fighting it out at the bottom ..... who seem to have bought in loads of Championship quality players on an ethos of quantity rather than quality.

However, for us it has been brilliant .... and we seem to be in the right place at the right time, being the only ones with an 'expansionist' policy. Or the only ones who can afford such a policy anyway. Shame we are not in the Champions League, as if we were, I think we could have virtually had our pick of most players on the planet during this summer window.

Finally ..... I used to hate and dread transfer windows. They were always about who we might lose rather than who we might get and I used to count the days till they were over in the often vain hope that we would somehow manage to hang on to the likes of Anelka, Distin, Berkovic, SWP, Micah Richards etc, just hopng that some top 4 club with cash wouldn't come in and take them away from us ...... It all felt so powerlessly frustrating.

Now ..... I love transfer windows!!

Can't wait for the next one!

Just one point though, for all we spent by for the most in the prem (£118m ish) there was still well over £300m spent elsewhere in the prem which isn't exactly damp squib figures especially considering that we're in an economic recession. I'm also not sure that anyone expected Spurs to spend that much, they spent as much as us last season and have a huge squad that would always need trimming before 'arry could start his wheeler dealing, he's done pretty much what everyone expected this summer.

Otherwise though, I agree totally! The top four were surprisingly quiet, you normally expect them to all make one big money signing in the summer window to keep things ticking along, I guess baconface would argue that Owen is their big signing but he just happened to be out of contract (cock). Having sold Alonso I'm shocked that scouse haven't made a high profile signing, the fat waiter assures us that the Italian crock is an ideal replacement (bull). Chelski to be fair look as if they don't particularly need to spend and their new boss will still be getting to know his squad. Whinger has done his usual low key business in the hope that he'll unearth a diamond with the scattergun approach to poaching youth from around the globe that has everyone singing his praises when the 5% that make it come through.

Unfortunately most of the lower end clubs have just jumped on the mediocre player merry go round where if the had searched for real quality for their moolah we might have seen a real shift in the status quo.

[ronk]

...... would have been an absolute damp squib without us and Real Madrid!

I don't know what the total figures are for deals but if you took us out of it, it would have been pennies in comparison to previous seasons. The top four spent next to nothing and Clubs who were expected to spend, like Spurs, also spent little.

The only real activity, from a player numbers point of view, has come from the clubs you would expect to be fighting it out at the bottom ..... who seem to have bought in loads of Championship quality players on an ethos of quantity rather than quality.

However, for us it has been brilliant .... and we seem to be in the right place at the right time, being the only ones with an 'expansionist' policy. Or the only ones who can afford such a policy anyway. Shame we are not in the Champions League, as if we were, I think we could have virtually had our pick of most players on the planet during this summer window.

Finally ..... I used to hate and dread transfer windows. They were always about who we might lose rather than who we might get and I used to count the days till they were over in the often vain hope that we would somehow manage to hang on to the likes of Anelka, Distin, Berkovic, SWP, Micah Richards etc, just hopng that some top 4 club with cash wouldn't come in and take them away from us ...... It all felt so powerlessly frustrating.

Now ..... I love transfer windows!!

Can't wait for the next one!

Just one point though, for all we spent by for the most in the prem (£118m ish) there was still well over £300m spent elsewhere in the prem which isn't exactly damp squib figures especially considering that we're in an economic recession. I'm also not sure that anyone expected Spurs to spend that much, they spent as much as us last season and have a huge squad that would always need trimming before 'arry could start his wheeler dealing, he's done pretty much what everyone expected this summer.

Otherwise though, I agree totally! The top four were surprisingly quiet, you normally expect them to all make one big money signing in the summer window to keep things ticking along, I guess baconface would argue that Owen is their big signing but he just happened to be out of contract (cock). Having sold Alonso I'm shocked that scouse haven't made a high profile signing, the fat waiter assures us that the Italian crock is an ideal replacement (bull). Chelski to be fair look as if they don't particularly need to spend and their new boss will still be getting to know his squad. Whinger has done his usual low key business in the hope that he'll unearth a diamond with the scattergun approach to poaching youth from around the globe that has everyone singing his praises when the 5% that make it come through.

Unfortunately most of the lower end clubs have just jumped on the mediocre player merry go round where if the had searched for real quality for their moolah we might have seen a real shift in the status quo.

Scum: Valencia (£16m)
Pool: Aquilani (£20m)
Chelsea: Zhirkov (£18m)

[Beeks]

once we get into the CL we will only have to choose which players we want and go get them (well, not Messi perhaps, but everyone else yes.

I'm pretty sure Messis 200 million buy out clause was made specifically with us in mind...everyone is worried of what we are capable of it seems

[Ted Hughes]

I think we're seeing the Sky 4 reacting to us, Spuds & the recession by being a bit more careful in case they don't make the chump's league. That has to be good news for all the other teams imo; it's already narrowing the gap.


This window has been fantastic for us but every year or two, young future world stars in one position or another start out on their careers. I like the idea that we're going to go out & try to find them rather than just looking to spend money in future transfer windows.

It would be fantastic to see Lionel Messi in a City shirt but it'd be even better to see someone as good come through our academy.

[Slim]

I can't stand the Yids, but if there is a chance two of the sky4 can be dislodged in one season, I hope they finish 2nd behind us.

[john@staustell]

Great article by Jim White in the Tele about the hysteria in the Sky Sports studio (mainly by his namesake Jim White, strangely), compared to the lack of activity. Well worth a read:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... -news.html

Sky Sports bang on about the transfer window but can't drum up much news
The clock was ticking in the Sky Sports News studio on Tuesday. There was not long left. Nothing much had happened. But you never know, it might.

By Jim White
Published: 7:00AM BST 02 Sep 2009

And the important thing was not to go away.

It is a tricky job reporting non-news. And yesterday, as football's final day of summer trading matched the weather, fading into a damp squib of grizzly disappointment, was about as non- as a non-news day could be. But that did not deter the presenters. The kings of spinning nothingness, they were as excited as a five year-old on Christmas Eve, urging us at every turn not to go away.

Take my namesake, Jim White. At the best of times, he has the delivery of a man addressing a deaf maiden aunt: a little too loud, a little too insistent, an aural metaphor for Sky Sports News itself. But on deadline day he was extra excited, so worked up he wore the frantic expression of someone forever on the verge of having to dash off in search of a lavatory.

"The clock is ticking," he bellowed as, well, the clock ticked. "Stay with us. You never know what might happen."

Jim likes to give the impression that if anything is to happen, he will be the first to know. At one point yesterday he showed us his mobile phone. "I've just had a text to call Paul Duffin, the Hull chairman," he gushed, with all the eagerness of one who had just been contacted by Angelina Jolie suggesting an illicit tryst.

There was no news from Hull. But if there was any forthcoming, Jim yelled that he would let us have it the moment it came. Alongside him, Georgie Thompson seemed not so well informed.

"Let's go to our correspondent David Craig, who I understand has been talking to Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn," she said. "I haven't been speaking to Niall Quinn," came back Craig. "He was too busy to speak to me."

In fact that seemed to be the job of the Sky Sports News correspondents as they stood outside training grounds across the country: to try to bring their studio-based colleagues back down to planet reality.

Take, for instance, Andy Burton, Sky's own deadline-day correspondent. He had popped into the studio with his battery of mobile phones to offer the very latest news [at Sky it is always the very latest; the latest simply isn't sufficient]. It was a rare case of a TV broadcast keen to be interrupted by the chirrup of an incoming call, but none of Burton's phones obliged.

"It feels like it's pretty quiet at the moment," said Burton, looking at his non-responsive hardware like a teenager waiting for news of an illegal rave. "But you never know, anything might happen," shrieked back Jim. "We might get some excitement – like last year."

Ah, last year, the deadline day of all deadline days, when Sir Alex Ferguson was chauffeuring Dimitar Berbatov from Manchester airport even as Manchester City were swishing Robinho from under the snouts of Chelsea. Compared to that, David James not going to Spurs and Nicky Shorey having difficulty with his personal terms was hardly the material for a Bafta winning effort. Not that White was remotely daunted by a total absence of activity.

"This is what the transfer window is all about," he yelled. "It's frantic, Andy."

"Frantic, but maybe not dynamic," came back Burton, the Eeyore of rolling sports news.

Still, the shots of players arriving at training grounds gave us the chance to study this season's off-field colour schemes. Particularly as the same pictures played time and again. There was Tal Ben Haim turning up at Portsmouth wearing primrose, and Pascal Chimbonda picking up his belongings at Spurs in a subtle shade of lilac.

"Stick with us, anything might happen," yelped White, as Ben Haim once again was seen walking to his car. But he was wrong. As five o'clock arrived, as the window closed with barely a clatter, the Israeli was still in primrose. And Andy Burton's phones remained silent.

[carl_feedthegoat]

NOTHING DAMP ABOUT THIS TRANSFER WINDOW AT ALL...EVEN WITHOUT US THE PREM SPENT OVER 340 MILLION POUNDS.

[Ted Hughes]

NOTHING DAMP ABOUT THIS TRANSFER WINDOW AT ALL...EVEN WITHOUT US THE PREM SPENT OVER 340 MILLION POUNDS.

The fact that we've spent a fair proportion of it shows how much less the usual suspects have spent compared to normal though.

[Slim]

This was always going to be the case, Liverpool and the Filth couldn't buy a bus ticket between them and Roman appears to have soured on funding the endless stream of managers at the Bridge. Wenger is still recovering from having paid money for Arshavin, god knows his dicky ticker can't take it.

[saulman]

It's been an interesting window for a number of reasons. I'm in agreement with Lytham that without us or Spuds it would have been a damp squib, considering previous windows.

The obvious stand-outs are Scum and Scouse having sold some of their best players for huge amounts and been seemingly unwilling to replace them. I suspect that this is not because everyone turned them down but because they simply don't have the sort of income that will cover transfers, wages and debt. Something has to give and it cannot be the debt so wages and transfers then.
Roman too seems like he's intent on balancing the books at Chelski, though it's just cost him quite a few quid to keep hold of Terry.

Another notable exception to the dealings for us is Villa. Having had a storming season last season, they seem unwilling to capitalise and move forward having sold us their best player and then been happy to recieve our cast-offs. (no disrespect to Dunnie) With them and Everton practically standing still (Everton going possibly backwards) this can only be working in our favour.

Yeah, I don't we have ever been better placed as the window has closed. Usually we're sweating over Mido or watching Andy Cole, Distin or James dump us for a club with more ambition but this has been the easiest time I can remember as a City fan. OK so the team have to perform but the signs are good and I can honestly say that I have never been as confident about our short, mid and long term future as I am now.

Long may it continue. :)

[Kiss_The_Goat]

Its been the transfer window that dreams are made of. Yeh we've spent a shit load of money, but we've spent it really really well and built a team. Considering the well documented size of our wealth as well, I dont think we've paid too far over the odds for anyone (apart from maybe RSC). Barry was a complete bargain at 12m!
Top marks to all involved! We've conducted our business with real class this window and got the people we wanted for reasonable money. I'm a very proud blue.

[Mr Miyagi]

I can't stand the Yids, but if there is a chance two of the sky4 can be dislodged in one season, I hope they finish 2nd behind us.

That's low, even by your standards.... do people still refer to spurs that way ??

[Mr Miyagi]

Chelski are now a cost cutting club:-)

Apparently (having spent 600m over the last 5 years) Abramovich is now a public supporter of Platini's proposals for spending caps..... what a joke...

[Slim]

Chelski are now a cost cutting club:-)

Apparently (having spent 600m over the last 5 years) Abramovich is now a public supporter of Platini's proposals for spending caps..... what a joke...

How dare you refer to them in such a way, that is low even by your standards....and so on.

[Mr Miyagi]

Chelski are now a cost cutting club:-)

Apparently (having spent 600m over the last 5 years) Abramovich is now a public supporter of Platini's proposals for spending caps..... what a joke...

How dare you refer to them in such a way, that is low even by your standards....and so on.

So you believe it is ok to call Spurs the Yids, despite all the connotations / history / racism that goes with it? You didn't answer the question which is not like you to duck an issue...