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Hello! Pep got his midfielder. Was nobody out there tempted by Moise Kean?
On the way:
Stress test: Form teams shun transfer window — and Man City leave it late
Nico Gonzalez (Photo: MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images)
It remains official. The mid-season transfer window is not where the best-dressed clubs shop.
Don’t take my word for it. Glance around Europe for evidence of what the continent’s in-contention teams forked out on. The Spanish trinity of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid: nought. Three of the Premier League’s top six: zilch. Bayern Munich: nada. Napoli and Inter: nothing of note.
Paris Saint-Germain whipped Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from their hat, and he registered high on the Richter scale, but it fell to Manchester City to keep the news cycle going by splurging £178m ($221m) before last night’s deadline.
I don’t know if we mentioned, but City have been rusting like a decommissioned Soviet submarine, which rather proves the point. January is where the stressed get going, while the orderly sit back and observe (illustrated in the graphic below). We wait now to see if City’s money was well spent.
£50m Gonzalez deal
Guardiola reeled in four players before deadline day — Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Juma Bah — but the glaring priority was a central midfielder and City hooked one late on by throwing £50m at Porto’s Nico Gonzalez.
Other candidates were considered, including Atalanta’s Ederson and Juventus’ City old boy Douglas Luiz, before Gonzalez appeared through the mist. Make what you will of the fact that City only buckled on meeting his release clause after Sunday’s pasting at Arsenal.
If, like me, you’ve heard of Gonzalez but have limited knowledge of him (or haven’t heard of him at all), our data writer Thom Harris came up with the juice. He describes the 23-year-old — a graduate of La Masia, Barcelona’s academy — as “a technically secure midfielder who can control games with his passing ability and ball retention in tight spaces”. He’s also trained to go box-to-box.
Sounds good. Hopefully he carries a puncture repair kit, too.
ICYMI
Let’s have a look at what else hit the fan before the window closed. Our live transfer blog has every cough and spit covered.
Pragmatic goings-on at Tottenham Hotspur as a forward who didn’t seem keen to link up with them — Bayern’s Mathys Tel — relented and shook hands. It’s a loan with a purchase option, which rather hedges his bets.
Chelsea defender Axel Disasi was also minded to give Spurs a swerve and bagged a loan to Aston Villa instead. While Chelsea were beating West Ham United 2-1 last night, they sorted a signing of their own: Saint-Etienne midfielder Mathis Amougou. He’s 19 and very on-brand.
Six months after signing a six-year contract, Joao Felix is departing Stamford Bridge on loan to Milan, who also acquired Santiago Gimenez from Feyenoord. That brought sense to Alvaro Morata’s departure, to Galatasaray on loan, from San Siro.
City, meanwhile, stood firm to stop Chelsea from re-enacting the Cole Palmer coup. Chelsea came calling for 19-year-old Nico O’Reilly. City insisted on a buy-back clause and heard the phone go dead. Once bitten, etc.
Top transfers
With time up, I ran back through the past month to highlight a few standout deals:
News round-up
- What a nightmare Spurs are having. Radu Dragusin is out for the season with a damaged anterior cruciate ligament. Ange Postecolgou will have to register himself to play at this rate.
- The headline from Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over West Ham: Enzo Maresca dropping goalkeeper Robert Sanchez. It’s been coming.
- No sooner do we hear the sound of the window slamming than West Ham part company with their technical director, Tim Steidten. He’s been emptied this morning.
- A court has heard how Chelsea Women’s striker Sam Kerr called a police officer “f****** stupid and white” as she went on trial charged with causing racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress. Kerr denies the claims against her.
- Manuel Neuer seems destined never to retire. He has agreed a Bayern contract that will take him past his 40th birthday.
- A long legal battle has ended in defeat for the North American Soccer League (NASL). It failed to prove that either MLS or the United States Soccer Federation conspired to stunt its growth.
Rubiales trial begins: Hermoso ‘received death threats’ after kiss at World Cup final
Hermoso leaves court (Photo: THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images)
As TAFC mentioned yesterday, four men are on trial in Spain — one of them being the former Spanish Football Federation president, Luis Rubiales — over the incident that saw Rubiales plant a kiss on Spain forward Jenni Hermoso after the Women’s World Cup final in 2023.
We’ll stay across proceedings, and day one yesterday heard from Hermoso herself, the key witness at the centre of the case. Rubiales, 47, who is accused of alleged sexual assault and coercion, denies wrongdoing along with the other defendants.
Hermoso explained how the kiss was non-consensual and “tainted one of the happiest days of my life”. She told the court she received death threats afterwards and had to leave her home in Madrid because of the scale of media attention. “To this day, my life has been on standby and I haven’t been able to live freely,” she said. The trial continues.
Around The Athletic FC 🔄
- I’m not sure anybody at Manchester United would describe the past five weeks as a success. They punted on Marcus Rashford and Antony and recruited a couple — but wound up without a new, ready-made forward. Here is Laurie Whitwell’s verdict.
- While Europe’s top five leagues are closed for incoming business, the windows in a few countries remain open, including the U.S. and Turkey. Elias Burke outlined the staggered finish.
- The Athletic FC Podcast recapped Arsenal’s weekend annihilation of City and also asked why they failed to find themselves a No 9. It’s on YouTube.
- More on the story we brought you about Dutch club Fortuna Sittard managing to get 12 players on the pitch during a game on Saturday. Repercussions are inevitable but even the authorities aren’t sure how to respond.
- It’s sad that Chloe Kelly’s time at Manchester City has ended bitterly, with the England forward convinced some inside the club were briefing journalists against her. City manager Gareth Taylor said it was “really disappointing” the situation had come to this.
- Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: Lamine Yamal’s Maradona impression.
Catch A Match 📺
(Selected games, ET/UK time)
Copa del Rey quarter-final: Atletico Madrid vs Getafe, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+ (U.S. only).
DFB-Pokal quarter-final: Stuttgart vs Augsburg, 2.45pm/7.45pm — ESPN+/DFB Play.
Coppa Italia quarter-final: Atalanta vs Bologna, 3pm/8pm — Paramount+/Premier Sports 1.
Coupe de France, last 16: Le Mans vs Paris Saint-Germain, 3.10pm/8.10pm — Fox Sports, Fubo (U.S. only).
And finally…
When he’s not busy cultivating an Andrea Pirlo hair-and-beard combination set, The Athletic’s James Horncastle is a damn fine judge of a footballer.
And when his interview with Moise Kean, published in November, hinted that the much-hyped forward was finally getting his groove on, I decided to follow Kean closely.
My reward? This work of art for Fiorentina over the weekend, nearing masterpiece levels. The no-look free kick and the cute little finish would have had Da Vinci loading up his palette.
(Top image: ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP via Getty Images)
