Arsenal, Barcelona and a transfer window that was almost interesting

Jim White’s yellow tie was nowhere to be seen. WhatsApp long ago killed the artifice of having two mobile phones on the desk. Fans hanging around a training ground to cheer a new signing in bovine fashion is just another casualty of Covid-19. Things ain’t what they used to be. But, as it SLAMMED SHUT, The Fiver had to admit that January 2022’s transfer window had actually been almost interesting. Of the big boys, Manchester City signed the new Sergio Agüero/Vicente Matías Vuoso in Julián Álvarez. Liverpool landed Luis Díaz and will probably go back in this summer for Fulham’s Fabio Carvalho, despite paperwork not being complete in time. Chelsea signed nobody. Manchester United shed Anthony Martial but Jesse Lingard was kept on.

The battle at the bottom rests on whether Newcastle got their pants pulled down in spending £85m of Saudi loot on Kieran Tripper, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimarães and Dan Burn, with Matt Targett loaned in from Villa. At Watford, Mr Roy must make do with the regen talents the Pozzo family expected Claudio Ranieri to do better with. Norwich bought nobody, their sole deadline-day business the loaning of heavy Pantene user Todd Cantwell to Bournemouth. And with Wood cashed in, Burnley can now get it launched to Dutch man-mountain Wout Weghorst. There’s Frank Lampard’s The Ev, of course, keeping up proud club traditions by acting as a repository for fallen talent in borrowing Donny van de Beek and signing Dele Alli. Will that be enough to reach the heights of 13th? A club needs ambitions, after all, something unhappy Hammers are wailing after David Moyes added precisely zilch to his squad.

The cries of “spend some effing money” are yet louder at Arsenal, louder even than at Tottenham, two Juventus players