Premier League clubs unlikely to spend big in January with transfers lined up for the summer

[ASFN Admin]

For football agents hoping to broker transfers, the phone is still ringing regularly but the conversations have been about the summer as much as January. The mid-season window creaked open on Saturday to little fanfare. There was no big-money deal to kick off the spending, nor is there expectation of big investment in the next 29 days as the Covid-19 pandemic grips football. Last season’s January spending was a splurge by comparison, with the top flight spending £230million to reinforce squads for the second half of the season, an increase of £50million from the previous year. Manchester United transformed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team by breaking the £50million mark for Bruno Fernandes and kept looking to invest in a forward, ending up with Odion Ighalo after failing in a move for Josh King. Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy was celebrating getting £17million for Christian Eriksen, who would have left for free six months later, but kept the money moving through the game and bought Steven Bergwijn. West Ham invested £18million up front on Jarrod Bowen, while Sheffield United broke their transfer record to sign Sander Berge. The highest-profile deal last January was Erling Haaland turning down the Premier League and heading to Borussia Dortmund but his agent Mino Raiola admits “it’s hard to do top deals in January”. Raiola was speaking in the context of Paul Pogba, who he says is unsettled at United and wants to move in the summer. It will be when the season is over that the big deals happen, rather than in the next four weeks. The season will be over and the financial landscape will be clearer, with the futures of players such as Pogba, Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish coming into sharp focus. Only the very top stock will get the big moves. The rest will be scrapping for moves, with clubs looking for loans and free transfers to add to their squads rather than putting down money.

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