So, that's the Premier League season pretty much over unless you're Newcastle or Hull after Middlesbrough all but relegated themselves yesterday. West Brom could play themselves back into contention for survival today but as they're at Liverpool, you can't really see it happening. So that's that, then, and for the majority of football fans, it's time for the interest on the pitch to fade away and the shouting and recriminations to begin off of it. Who were the best and worst signings of 2008/09? Who fired their team to glory and who should have just been fired?
Time to look at the five best and worst transfers of the 2008/09 Premier League Season:
BEST:
Marouane Fellaini (Standard Liege > Everton): Goals, work rate, height, strength, speed, and a big bag of that certain X factor that creates cult figures and takes some of the work of geeing up the team off of Cahill. He might have cost £15m, but he's only 21 and settled into the Everton team right away, becoming one of their most important players almost immediately, something a lot of similarly-priced signings singularly failed to do.
Andrei Arshavin (Zenit St. Petersburg > Arsenal): While I don't quite buy into the hype just yet that Arshavin is the new Dennis Bergkamp despite his heroics at Liverpool - Rafa just has a tactical blind spot to Arsenal attacking midfielders after that absolute donkey Julio Baptista scored 4 past them as well a couple of years ago - the little Russian was certainly the kick-start Arsenal's season needed and the experienced creative spark they were lacking. The difference between Arsenal with Arshavin and without was night and day, plainly and painfully obvious in their lackluster Champions League performances.
Jonas Gutierrez (RCD Mallorca > Newcastle): He might have the haircut of a fifteen-year-old tomboy, but for all of Newcastle's problems this season, none of them have been down to this man. A talented winger with graft, it doesn't matter where he gets played across the midfield, because whereever you don't play him, he'll turn up there anyway. Often playing two positions because of the Toon's bizarre wing-back setup, he's been Newcastle's best player for most of the season. Shame he'll probably leave if they go down; they need him.
Wilson Palacios (Wigan > Tottenham): One of the major reasons behind Tottenham's turnaround in the second half of the season, he added presence where Zokora had previously just stood around marvelling at the opposition and Jenas couldn't see a thing out of his tiny face. Hopefully for him he'll come back fine next season after the killing of his brother, which obviously makes football seem incredibly unimportant.
Robbie Keane (Liverpool > Tottenham): Essentially got around £8m for a six month loan swap. You just argue with the good finances of that kind of deal.
WORST:
David Bentley (Blackburn > Tottenham): Came in as Beckham's natural successor, went out being kept out of the team by Aaron Lennon's Gay Right Hand. The boy with the million dollar haircut, the billion dollar ego and the FarmFoods workrate spent a few games drifting around the pitch doing very little before vanishing back to the bench to be replaced by a player Spurs already had. What a pointless waste of fifteen million pounds.
Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham > Manchester United): He's been good, but he's not been £30m of good. That alone wouldn't be enough to get him on this list, but the real reason is that the spending of £30m on Berbatov is the sole reason United can't splash the cash to keep Tevez, a younger, superior and hungrier player, creating the one incident in as long as I can remember that has seen the fans turn on The Big Red-Nosed One. They might regret this next year when Berbatov goes absent without leave when they're 1 - 0 down at Anfield.
Xisco (Deportivo La Coruna > Newcastle): Six million pounds of Spanish striking talent was scheduled to arrive at Newcastle in the summer, only for British Airways to accidentally ship it to Bangalore. Turning up at St. James' with high hopes only to find himself seventh-choice striker in a team embroiled in a bitter relegation battle, you have to wonder just how bad Xisco has to have been in training to find himself behind Shola Ameobi and The Man With 1,000 Haircuts, Andy Carroll. Not what you need when you cost six million pounds, your team's first choice strike force is about as robust as runny egg yolk, and your competition as backup is the player Cardiff didn't want out of Shola Ameobi and Michael Chopra.
Jimmy Bullard (Fulham > Hull): Poor Jimmy, this is through absolutely no fault of his own, but Hull really must be kicking themselves that they paid out £5m for Jimmy Bullard's one half of football. A battling midfielder of just the kind they needed, but not when he's sat on the treatment table, if Hull do go down, it might very well be because they spent most of their January cash on Jimmy's dodgy knee.
Robbie Keane (Tottenham > Liverpool): Essentially paid around £8m for a six month loan swap. You just argue with the poor finances of that kind of deal.
Goodnight
Time to look at the five best and worst transfers of the 2008/09 Premier League Season:
BEST:
Marouane Fellaini (Standard Liege > Everton): Goals, work rate, height, strength, speed, and a big bag of that certain X factor that creates cult figures and takes some of the work of geeing up the team off of Cahill. He might have cost £15m, but he's only 21 and settled into the Everton team right away, becoming one of their most important players almost immediately, something a lot of similarly-priced signings singularly failed to do.
Andrei Arshavin (Zenit St. Petersburg > Arsenal): While I don't quite buy into the hype just yet that Arshavin is the new Dennis Bergkamp despite his heroics at Liverpool - Rafa just has a tactical blind spot to Arsenal attacking midfielders after that absolute donkey Julio Baptista scored 4 past them as well a couple of years ago - the little Russian was certainly the kick-start Arsenal's season needed and the experienced creative spark they were lacking. The difference between Arsenal with Arshavin and without was night and day, plainly and painfully obvious in their lackluster Champions League performances.
Jonas Gutierrez (RCD Mallorca > Newcastle): He might have the haircut of a fifteen-year-old tomboy, but for all of Newcastle's problems this season, none of them have been down to this man. A talented winger with graft, it doesn't matter where he gets played across the midfield, because whereever you don't play him, he'll turn up there anyway. Often playing two positions because of the Toon's bizarre wing-back setup, he's been Newcastle's best player for most of the season. Shame he'll probably leave if they go down; they need him.
Wilson Palacios (Wigan > Tottenham): One of the major reasons behind Tottenham's turnaround in the second half of the season, he added presence where Zokora had previously just stood around marvelling at the opposition and Jenas couldn't see a thing out of his tiny face. Hopefully for him he'll come back fine next season after the killing of his brother, which obviously makes football seem incredibly unimportant.
Robbie Keane (Liverpool > Tottenham): Essentially got around £8m for a six month loan swap. You just argue with the good finances of that kind of deal.
WORST:
David Bentley (Blackburn > Tottenham): Came in as Beckham's natural successor, went out being kept out of the team by Aaron Lennon's Gay Right Hand. The boy with the million dollar haircut, the billion dollar ego and the FarmFoods workrate spent a few games drifting around the pitch doing very little before vanishing back to the bench to be replaced by a player Spurs already had. What a pointless waste of fifteen million pounds.
Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham > Manchester United): He's been good, but he's not been £30m of good. That alone wouldn't be enough to get him on this list, but the real reason is that the spending of £30m on Berbatov is the sole reason United can't splash the cash to keep Tevez, a younger, superior and hungrier player, creating the one incident in as long as I can remember that has seen the fans turn on The Big Red-Nosed One. They might regret this next year when Berbatov goes absent without leave when they're 1 - 0 down at Anfield.
Xisco (Deportivo La Coruna > Newcastle): Six million pounds of Spanish striking talent was scheduled to arrive at Newcastle in the summer, only for British Airways to accidentally ship it to Bangalore. Turning up at St. James' with high hopes only to find himself seventh-choice striker in a team embroiled in a bitter relegation battle, you have to wonder just how bad Xisco has to have been in training to find himself behind Shola Ameobi and The Man With 1,000 Haircuts, Andy Carroll. Not what you need when you cost six million pounds, your team's first choice strike force is about as robust as runny egg yolk, and your competition as backup is the player Cardiff didn't want out of Shola Ameobi and Michael Chopra.
Jimmy Bullard (Fulham > Hull): Poor Jimmy, this is through absolutely no fault of his own, but Hull really must be kicking themselves that they paid out £5m for Jimmy Bullard's one half of football. A battling midfielder of just the kind they needed, but not when he's sat on the treatment table, if Hull do go down, it might very well be because they spent most of their January cash on Jimmy's dodgy knee.
Robbie Keane (Tottenham > Liverpool): Essentially paid around £8m for a six month loan swap. You just argue with the poor finances of that kind of deal.
Goodnight
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