Be Careful What You Wish For

By: Daryl | December 1st, 2008

Managing: Newcastle
Date: Feb 1st, 2009
Progress: 6th in Prem after 24 games

The January transfer window is now closed. And, if you recall, my goal was to hold on to my players who were attracting interest, and maybe pick up a few good youngsters.

And that’s exactly what I managed to do. So, a resounding success, no? Well, no. And here’s why:

I did manage to stop star striker Obafemi Martins from backflipping through the window, despite his hot hot form and £13m minimum fee release clause. But only because Man U and Inter failed to provide the money up front and offered structured deals instead.

The big downside is that now he’s mad at me for not letting him go. So instead of an in-form pacy striker who terrorized defences I’ve got a greedy grumpster who’s more interested in accepting praise from Sir Alex Ferguson than he is in scoring goals for Newcastle.

I also rejected substantial bids from Spurs (£6.75m and £8.75m) for Jose Enrique. This has turned a happy and dependable 22 year old Spanish left back into an unreliable grumpatron. Ditto Steven Taylor, who’s Newcastle through and through but upset that I rejected a laughable £5.5m bid from Everton (though my £20m counter-proposal was equally laughable.)

So now all these players have lost both form and momentum, which doesn’t look like coming back any time soon.

Here’s what did happen in the transfer market…

Transfers out:

Geremi to Portsmouth – £2.2m (his legs had gone)
David Edgar to Anderlecht – £500k (average player, average pricetag)
Xisco loan to Ajax for £400k (plus they pick up wage bill)
Shola Ameobi to Norwich for £500k (sorry Dave!)
Sebastian Basssong loan to PSG for £130k
Jozey Altidore loan terminated and sent back to Villarreal (for general rubbishness)
Ben Tozer to Everton for £1m (massively regretting this now, as he was promising and local)

With that money raised, I went shopping…

Transfers in:

Andriy Rusol on a free (quality central defender, hopefully)
Chanda Mwaba from RoSP for £140k (solid 20 year old attacking mid)
Vaclav Kadlec from Sparta Prague for £100k (16 year old next big thing)
John Fleck from Rangers for £2.7m (Robert Fleck’s nephew and hopefully the future of my left wing)

Games played:

FA Cup vs Norwich (away) W 3-0. Goals from Pogrebnyak, Altidore and Lewandowski

vs Man City (home) W 2-1. Gave Altidore a start and he lost the ball every time he received it. That’s when I decided he could eff off back to Spain. Martins came on at halftime and pretty much stood still. Not the best utilization of his pace. But did get a great come from behind win by having Coloccini man mark Robinho while Pogrebnyak and Guthrie went off and scored. In your face Mark Hughes.

vs Wigan (away) L 2-0. Shock. Only Belletti turned up and played for this one, everyone else phoned it in. Failed to score for the first time in a long time. Against a team containing Titus Bramble.

vs Sunderland (home) D 1-1. We dominated this and Martins woke up and scored in the 81st, only for Sunderland to equalize in the 82nd. Two points down the toilet. Five if you include the Wigan game.

FA Cup vs Liverpool (away) W 2-0. We went in as underdogs (according to the press) but came out with a 2-0 win. Early goals from Pogrebnyak and Belletti did the trick, and John Fleck made his debut in the final 15 minutes. Black and white ribbons on the cup this season?

vs Arsenal (home) L 3-1. Took a 22nd minute lead through Pogrebnyak (man’s prolific all of a sudden) and then got taught a lesson in attacking football for the next 70. Oba Martins got a 5.0 rating, and that was probably generous.