Van Dijk has been a huge success for Liverpool during his 12 months at Anfield and is, perhaps, the exception to the rule that states the January window is dominated by panic buying and expensive mistakes. Having banked the £75m for Van Dijk, Southampton invested £19.1m of their windfall on Argentine forward Guido Carrillo from Monaco. After just five Premier League appearances and no goals for the Saints, he was shipped out on loan to Leganes as a costly flop. Carrillo is an example of why Ferguson, and many big clubs and leading managers, have been so reluctant to sign players in January. The biggest clubs now spend months working on prospective signings, scouting them and diving deep into their backgrounds off the pitch. Sometimes, circumstances dictate that they have to do deals in January, but for the top clubs, it is all about the summer window instead. Chelsea have bucked the trend this month by securing an agreement with Christian Pulisic for the Borussia Dortmund forward to complete a £58m move to the club in the summer, with a loan deal, including an option to buy, also sealed with Juventus for Gonzalo Higuain. But there are two reasons for Chelsea’s January business. First, the Blues are under threat of a worldwide transfer ban relating to the signing of Bertrand Traore, which could kick in this summer, so any deals done now are an insurance policy against any FIFA-imposed penalty. Second, the club’s failure to adequately recruit in the summer… [Read full story]
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