Reflecting - Deadline Day.

The window may be shut but there’s still time to reflect on yesterday’s events. Don’t expect this to be the usual stereotypical blog, there will be grammatical errors, this is me reflecting on yesterday and to do that, I don’t want to ‘fine tune’ the article afterwards, so, lets begin with the start of the day.

As a Manchester United fan, I’m going to start off with my own particular club, if you don’t want to read about Sneijder, skip the next few paragraphs. The word I’d use on the possibility of the deal for me was optimistic. The twitter rumour mill was in full flow with mainly, a split opinion. Some say the deal was on, and others said it was off, as simple as that. With the deal being “dead” I was surprised when Sky Sports News (who I’ll get onto later) said they had “exciting news for Manchester United fans.”

Twitter went into turmoil, we were all on the edge of our seats, and even the neutrals were slightly excited. SSN are usually very good when it comes to transfers, knowing deals and normally confirming the deals on the programme.  This has changed this year. Twitter has simply ruined SSN, even though the confirmation and the reliability of SSN is so much greater than twitter, they narrow down the good from the crap, but this year, SSN fell for the crap.

Now, time to rant. Why the hell are you giving us this “exciting news” if you don’t even know it yourself? It took you 3 hours just say “there’s nothing new on Wesley Sneijder” Why? Why did it take that long, that’s pathetic. You gave so many false hope yesterday, including me, for what? I later found out it was the “excitable presenters fault” erm, no it wasn’t. You fell for a twitter rumour, you announced it to the viewers, you built it up “will Wesley Sneijder come to Manchester United, or not coming up next.” Those were the words of Hayley McQueen, one of the presenters. I’m not blaming her, someone should of told them that they’re not 100% sure that this is concrete information, she was in the loop as much as anyone.

I can fully accept you got it wrong, it happens, you even fell for a fake Stewart Downing twitter account over James Milner, and again, nothing happened after that. Surely, if you’ve given false (quite major) information, you should apologise, live on TV. No, they didn’t do that, they just kept badgering on about Cameron Jerome to Stoke, which they announced about an hour earlier.  I, as well as others, were pissed off and quite frankly have received quite a lame excuse back, an apology would be nice.

Sneijder didn’t come but they were other signings and I don’t want to bother you about the saga anymore, that’s the last of it from me, I promise. Now, I don’t want to talk in a very analytical view on each clubs signings, so, I’ll just mention a few. Firstly, Arsenal.

Speaking to fans before, and after the deadline, it seems a flash of realism has struck them. Losing such key figureheads in their previous side has seriously dampened the mood at Arsenal, and everyone knew they’d be busy. For me, they didn’t sign enough, they never were as Wenger left it too late. Arsenal haven’t got a top 4 squad anymore, replacing Fabregas and Nasri was always going to be hard but Arteta can’t fill both players roles, they struggled for goals before he arrived, now, it’ll be even harder. They may have more experienced leaders on the pitch but with these players, a new philosophy of play is in order. Mertesacker is a great signing, he’ll deal with the physical side of the Premier League, standing at 6ft 6, and it’ll be key how he and Vermaelen link together, and they could be a fantastic defensive partnership. Also, they brought in Santos, a left back who similarly to Clichy, is a bit suspect at the back. I think Arsenal fans shouldn’t expect an immediate good performance from the player but in time, he could be a great addition to the side, especially going forward.

Staying with the major clubs, we move onto Chelsea. I seem to get a lot of flak from their support so I’ll keep this short, why do I get flack? I just say it how it is, they aren’t as good as they once were, will struggle this year to beat the Manchester clubs. Meireles, really, that it? Mata is going to be a fantastic player, and in time, will bring out the best of Torres once again but only Meireles, they needed more, especially at the back, where they’ve looked suspect for several games now. They key to Chelsea is that they’ve got lucky, they’ve got 7 points in 3 games and they need to take that as a positive. A problem they will face is that teams will now feel they can take something from Stamford Bridge, they won’t just sit 11 behind the ball; I expect their home record not to be as great as it once was.

Moving onto to Stoke, one of the big spenders on deadline day. Personally, now, I feel they could do some real damage in the Premier League. The acquisition of Wilson Palacios is one of the signings of the summer, they’ve also strengthened at the back, increasing their strength in depth, something Arsenal, who I spoke about earlier, haven’t done. Stoke haven’t necessarily replaced players, they’ve just strengthen the side, in different areas. As well as Palacios and Jerome, they also brought Peter Crouch. The England international’s career has been on hold for a while, with Peter trying to revive his England career, I’m sure he’ll get plenty of chance at Stoke, expecting some big things from him this year.

Finally, I move onto new boys QPR. After a recent takeover, the signing of Joey Barton was the sign of things to come and deadline day didn’t disappoint the QPR faithful. Shaun Wright-Phillips was hotly tipped to join the London club and was again, one of the signings of the summer. As well as the tricky winger, they’ve also reassured the back four with the additions of Luke Young and Anton Ferdinand. The signings they’ve made may take them away from relegation but what will be interesting is how the ego’s of the club cope with the manager, if they clash, there’s always the risk of a backlash.

The last few days may of set the future for your clubs season but you can’t forget there’s still another chance in January to finalise your squad. The key from now to then is to keep players fit, it could be an even longer few months if your captain or key player gets injured, as well as that, winning games normally helps, doesn’t it?

 Signing of the Summer: Shay Given
Biggest Winner: Stoke
Biggest Loser: Everton
Biggest Disappointment: Tottenham
Biggest Twat: Owen Hargreaves

 

Thanks for reading the blog and also following me over the course of the summer, I, for one, will be staying on twitter and finally I can talk about football again. For me, I started Twitter with literally no “inside knowledge” of the game, just a passion and a decent understanding of Football. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken to some journalist and agents etc which has really helped. I want to become a Sports Journalist and this blog has slowly helped me along the way. I’m not ITK and never claimed to be so, if you followed me thinking I was going to give you some big exclusive, you followed the wrong guy.

Maybe in January, if I’m still talking to the right people as well as getting to know even more, I might have a few bits of information for you, but that’s the beauty of twitter, isn’t it?

Expect plenty of blogs in the future and I hope you’ve taken the time to read through this one, I’ve been “thefootylad” and I hope you’ve had a great summer.

Thanks for reading,

TFL.