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Arsenal have announced the acquisition of young, talented striker
Iker Hernandez for Real Sociedad for a fee of
10 Million $. Iker, although talented, has
never been capped at the U21 level for Spain. There is slight discontent that Arsene Wenger overpaid for both of his acquisitions this year. Especially considering the fact that Iker won't be featuring for the first team, but will instead be sent out on loan.
He had this to say, "
People have been pointing fingers at us for years, stating that we haven't bought forwards. Well, we have addressed that problem, now, and for the future. As for overpaying, sometimes, you need to overpay in order to secure deals. As long as the club is not held to ransom, I find myself satisfied by it. Iker won't immediately be playing for the first team, but will instead be sent out on loan to Celtic for a year, it'll be a valuable experience for him."
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Coming to London,
Chelsea have announced the acquisition of young Italian star,
Domenico Berardi, for an overall fee of
15 Million $, split evenly between
Juventus and Sassuolo, who co-owned the player. Jose Mourinho clearly seems to be targeting for the future, as the young striker will be sent back on loan to Sassuolo to gain some valuable match experience, before plying his trade for Chelsea. Berardi was tracked by Arsenal, but they could not free enough funds to get him. Chelsea also announced the
purchase of young Slovakian attacking midfielder,
David Ivan, for a fee of
7 Million $ from
Sampdoria. Chelsea also announced the
sale of English fullback
Ryan Bertrand to Newcastle for a fee of
5.75 Million $.
Jose Mourinho had this to say, "Y
es, we've bought them. We firmly believe they're rising stars, and we want them here at the club. Berardi will go out on loan to Sassuolo for some more match experience." When asked about the sale of Ryan Bertrand, especially since they have less quality in the area, he said "
Well, Ryan wasn't going to get much games. We have Ashley Cole, Azpilicueta and Ivanovic for the full-back role, so we're not duly worried. Our defenders can cover, if more than one of them gets injured at a time. Plus, his sale will a small way towards FFP, especially since we're barely toeing the line regards it." When asked about his failure to acquire Luke Shaw, Mourinho said, "
We wanted him to continue his career at Chelsea. He would have been a rotation player for a season or two, but after that he would be our main Left Back. But I guess that wasn't acceptable to him, so when Manchester United made an offer, he went there. I have no regrets, we'll always have other players."
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Liverpool, fresh on the sale of
Lucas Leiva to
Manchester City for
35.5 Million $, have gone of
buying sp ree for
midfielders. The common point among all these midfielders is that they're solid defensively. They've bought
Blaise Matuidi from Paris St. Germain for
9.25 Million $,
Blerim Dzemaili from Napoli for
19 Million $,
Mohammed Diame from West Ham for
5.5 Million $ and
Claudio Yacob from West Brom for
16 Million $. Perhaps Liverpool felt that the hole created by the departure of Lucas was only possible to be filled by 4 midfielders, while clearly, other areas needed strengthening. Strange piece of transfer business this.
Brendan Rodgers had this to say, "
Yes, we have bought four midfielders. This way, we have ample cover at midfield, so that our team won't struggle too much possession should any of our regular midfielders get injured." When asked about the reason why they needed to sell Lucas at all to a rival, he said "
Well, we got a good offer for him. And Lucas said he wanted to leave to a bigger club. We felt there was no point in keeping an unhappy player. We'll show him why his decision was a bad one, come the end of the season." When asked about strengthening other areas and if there would be more transfers, he had this to say, "
Well, at the moment, we are very happy with our squad, so it is very, very unlikely that we'll move for more players this season."
Manchester United have been the busiest club this summer in Europe, as new coach Sherlock looks to make his mark on the team left behind by legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Major controversial talking points of Sherlock's regime till now have been the sale of Wayne Rooney for a total outlay of 75 Million $ to Bayern Munich, and Javier Hernandez for 40 Million $ to Arsenal. Other players leaving United were Ben Amos on a free, Anderson for 14 Million $, and Alexander Buttner for 7 Million $.
Manchester United seem intent on utilising the money from sales on youth, as all of United's acquisitions have been youngsters, with the exception of
Marouane Fellaini, who was acquired before Sherlock took charge. United so far have bought
Alberto Cerri for
1.3 Million $,
Mario Pugliese for
1 Million $,
Richairo Zivkovic for
857K $,
Sergi Samper for
1.8 Million $,
Timo Werner for
8 Million $,
Paul Pogba for
49 Million $ overall,
Luke Shaw for
37 Million $ overall,
Ezequiel Rescaldani for
3 Million $ and
Otavio for
9.5 Million $ overall.
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Manchester City, predictably, haven't sold any players, but have managed to get two more in. Joining City will be
Lucas Leiva from Liverpool for
35.5 Million $ and
Andros Townsend from Tottenham for
13.5 Million $. They will be joining Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo, Jesus Navas, Martin Demichelis and Fernandinho, all of whom joined City this season. Manchester City, as usual, seem to have little qualms regarding FFP.
Pellegrini had this to say, "
Well, the purchase of Lucas was a strategic one, and he'll be an important player for us. A good strong defensive/offensive midfield partnership is crucial to us, and if either Fernandinho or Toure got injured, our season could unravel very fast. Lucas will be strengthening a key area for us. We are very happy with his acquisition, and we got him for a bargain, considering his talent." On the acquisition of Townsend, he said, "
Well, Townsend essentially is to provide cover for us at the wings. He's a good player, so we got him rather cheaply. Also, since we generally struggle with the Home Grown rules, Townsend's acquisition can only help us."
Those were the major transfers happening in some of the top English clubs till now. We'll also run you through the transfers happening in major clubs across Europe now.
First, going to Spain,
Barcelona acquired
Nemanja Matic from SLB for a fee of
18.5 Million $.
Jonathan Silva was also purchased by Barcelona for the future, for a fee of
6.5 Million $, with the player being
loaned back to the club for the remainder of the season. Barcelona also acquired young and talented central midfielder
Koke from Atletico Madrid, for a fee of
19.75 Million $, activating his release clause.
Real Madrid, suprisingly haven't bought anybody else, probably still
reeling from shock of the magnitude of the transfer of
Gareth Bale for
135 Million $. Instead, they have
sold experienced fullback
Alvaro Arbeloa to Paris St. Germain for a fee of
4.8 Million $, probably to try whatever they can to comply with FFP, following Mesut Ozil's sale earlier.
Atletico Madrid have sold
Koke to Barcelona for
19.75 Million $, and have bought in
Sulley Muntari from A.C Milan for
2.4 Million $ and
William Kvist from Stuttgart for
8.5 Million$ as his replacements.
Moving to Germany,
Bayern Munich were probably the biggest spenders, opting to spend a major chunk of their budget on
Wayne Rooney for
75 Million $ overall from Manchester United. Following the signing of Thiago and Mario Gotze, it is unlikely that the German club will attempt to do any more transfers this year, having a mostly completed squad, and try to remain on the safe side of FFP.
Borussia Dormund, on the other hand, decided to invest more wisely. Having sold
Julian Scheiber to Bayer Leverkusen for
3.5 Million $, they opted to
bring in Sebastian Rode from Frankfurt for
6.75 Million $,
Stefan Savic from Fiorentina for
10.25 Million $ and
Patrick Pflucke from Mainz for
1.1 Million $.
After selling
Marco Hoger to Wolfsburg for
7.25 Million $,
Schalke have opted to bring in
Marc-Oliver Kempf for
3.6 Million $ from Frankfurt, and
Fabian Johnson from Hoffenheim for
1.7 Million $.
In Italy,
Juventus have had an eventful transfer window. After having sold
Paul Pogba for a total outlay for
49 Million $ to Manchester United and
part of
Domenico Berardi's ownership to Chelsea for
7.5 Million $, Juventus brought in
Davide Santon from Newcastle for
15.75 Million $ and
Sergi Darder from Malaga for
1.5 Million $. Juventus now also
co-own Alessandro Florenzi, along with Roma, for
17.25 Million $.
Napoli have sold
Blerim Dzemaili to Liverpool for
19 Million $, and among other deals, now
co-own Radja Nainggolan along with Cagliari for
11 Million $.
A.C Milan have bought
Mateo Musacchio from Villareal for
4.6 Million $, and
Andrea Bertollaci from Genoa for
4.9 Million $, after having
sold Sulley Muntar i to Atletico for
2.4 Million $ an d
Urby Emanuelson to Real Sociedad for
4.6 Million $.
Coming to France,
Paris St. Germain have sold
Blaise Matuidi to Liverpool for
9.25 Million $, and have bought in
Adriano from Barcelona for
12.5 Million $ and
Alvaro Arbeloa from Real Madrid for
4.8 Million $. Youngster
Moussa Dembele also joins from Fulham for a reported fee of
750K $.
A.S Monaco have had an eventful window, and have brought in
Antoine Griezmann from Real Sociedad for
23.5 Million $,
Mame Diouf from Hannover for
11.5 Million $ and
Daley Blind from Ajax for
11 Million $.
That's it for now regarding transfer news. Watch this space for more updates.
Two of my fave players at united