Everything you need to know about what happened on the transfer market’s final day
Everything you need to know about what happened on the transfer market’s final day
By Eric Beard
From Ryan Babel tweeting to his followers via helicopter that he’s staying at Liverpool to Robinho passing a medical in Milan to Roberto Martinez’s Wigan pulling a major coup of youth in Franco Di Santo and Tom Cleverley, there was a lot of chaos, a ton of lies, and, of course, quite a few transfers. Rafael Van Der Vaart could be on his way to Tottenham for a rumoured 8 million euros, but that will be decided by the Premier League based on whether Spurs got their paperwork in on time. But let’s not allow ‘arry to linger in our minds, instead let’s run through the day of madness we all watch aimlessly…
In order to bring Robinho to the San Siro, Milan needed to clear up some cash. So Klaas Jan-Huntelaar, realising that his playing time would be limited with Ibra to now compete with, chose to go to Schalke, where he will presumably be Raúl’s strike partner. Good move for both parties. Schalke also signed Lille´s Nicolas Plestan, so they’re set to compete for the Bundesliga title once again.
Sadly, Milan are also losing Marco Borriello, who is the best form of his career. The 28-year-old goes to Roma on loan, and the club has the option to buy him for £10.7m at the end of the season.
Moving on to England, Birmingham and Wigan did remarkably well today. Birmingham managed to sign Alex Hleb over the likes of Benfica leading Birmingham manager Alex McLeish: “Hleb is a top quality player - one who at one stage we’d only actually dreamed about really.” McLeish also managed to sign Chilean Jean Beausejour on a 3-year-deal from Club América and 31-year-old Martin Jarinek from Spartak Moscow. Wigan, on the other hand, got Manchester United starlet Tom Cleverley on loan and signed Franco Di Santo on a 3-year-deal from Chelsea for an undisclosed fee.
