The 11pm deadline came and went, and a very quiet transfer window for most clubs ended with one player coming in, one going out and a few younger lads moved on or loaned out for experience.We all know that Eto’o left on good terms (kind’ve) last week to go to Sampdoria. If you believe the press then he’s already fallen out with the Italian club due to a refusal to train twice the day after his20-minute debut with his team-mates. He is apparently ‘looking at his options’. That went well then.
Moving on, as we need to, we made what could be a very astute signing. Aaron Lennon comes in to give McGeady some competition and make a very speedy right hand side with Coleman indeed.
Lennon has become a bit of a forgotten man at Spurs in recent times, although it surprised me to see that he’s played 16 games in all competitions for Spurs this year – 9 in the league. He’s not scored any goals this season and has one assist against – guess who – yes, Everton in their 2-1 win. The balance he provides us with Mirallas on the left could be impressive, and if he can sort his crossing out he could feed Lukaku brilliantly.
There were rumours that Mirallas could actually be leaving us for Spurs in that window but thankfully they turned out to be false, although I can imagine he’d leave in the Summer for Champions League football.
Think about the players we have to come back though – Osman will bring creativity, McCarthy will bring steel to us again and good passing, Pienaar will bring a renewed partnership with Baines and Tim Howard will bring some of those really nice peanut butter biscuits from the US I hope.
The only disappointments? Perhaps that we didn’t get to sign the goalkeeper that Martinez promised us at the start of the window. As mentioned in a previous post, perhaps it was seen that Joel Roble had been doing okay recently and that Howard was recovering quickly, and the club decided to save their cash for the Summer window?
Molde have stated that we didn’t want to spend money up front on Orjan Nyland – around £3m – which shows that perhaps we weren’t too sold on him in the first place. £3m for a reserve goalie might be served better elsewhere.
Also it was rumoured on the day that we’d be in for Winston Reed of West Ham. There were thoughts we may even swap him for Distin which would have been an amazing piece of business, but alas it wasn’t to be.
Overall though we look like having a decent squad for the last few months. It’s over to Roberto to get them organized now and back up that table.