Levy and Spurs the biggest January transfer window winners; Forest and West Ham the losers

Daniel Levy has played the ultimate long game with Spurs, Nottingham Forest and Fulham had their usual late transfer dashes and West Ham struggled again.

Winners

Sir Alex Ferguson
File the lack of value in the January transfer window alongside there being too many Custis’ and Phil Jones having the potential to become Manchester United’s “best ever player” at the top of any list of Sir Alex Ferguson’s most prophetic pronouncements.

Daniel Levy
Talk about playing the long game. More than two decades’ worth of frugality is starting to pay off and Spurs are the only club with any actual money left to spend.

Spurs have made the biggest Premier League transfer of the window in Radu Dragusin, and one of the most impactful so far with Timo Werner’s loan. Two squad-enhancing deals, completed in the first half of the month to allow them to be integrated immediately and successfully, with high earners and relics from the past in Hugo Lloris and Eric Dier shifted out with similar efficiency.

Then with Bayern Munich pipped to the line for Dragusin, a last-gasp Ornstein bomb is dropped to reveal Barcelona have been beaten to the £10m punch for highly-rated Swedish teenager Lucas Bergvall.

It does not make for a particularly Spursy time, and Fabio Paratici’s fingerprints remain inexplicably and inextricably present in their operations, but they do seem to have finally grown up a little with an actual adult in charge.

Aston Villa
Steven Gerrard and Unai Emery have rather handily made seven permanent first-team signings each as Aston Villa manager, which is awfully kind of them for comparative purposes.

Gerrard’s seven, with an average age of 27.8 and only one signing under the age of 27, were purchased for roughly £87m.

Emery’s seven, with an average age of 23.2 and only one signing over the age of 26, were purchased for roughly £102m.

It is just one of many ways to underline the slight difference between their respective reigns. If you look closely enough you can just about spot a couple more.

Daniel Munoz
The first outright right-back signed by Crystal Palace since Nathaniel Clyne in October 2020. The first outright right-back Crystal Palace have spent money on since Martin Kelly in August 2014. Munoz has some incredibly small and very funny shoes to fill.

Roy Hodgson
What is surely the last signing of a managerial career almost half a century long also becomes the biggest in that ludicrous tenure. Roy Hodgson’s final transfer is his biggest ever.

Few clubs identify and target potentially elite Championship talent quite like Crystal Palace and Adam Wharton cannot hope for better examples to follow than that of Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise.

And Hodgson will finally get a proper opportunity to shape the midfielder’s trajectory through double training sessions and playing when not fully fit when he returns as interim manager in 18 months. Everyone’s a winner. Except probably Wharton’s hamstrings.

READ MORE: All the completed Premier League deals in the 2024 January transfer window

Brighton
It will never not be weird that Brighton can sign a player linked with Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona and Juventus and many others, and everyone just nods sagely and accepts it as the normal course of events.

The Seagulls have done it again, bringing Pervis Estupinan’s replacement in early before his probable nine-figure move in the summer, with the same South American market which delivered Alexis Mac Allister, Moises Caicedo and Facundo Buonanotte in previous winters exploited once more to enviably brilliant effect.

Luton
Just casually buying actual internationals and sending their failed record signing off for a quicky Championship loan like the proper Premier League club they are now.

Sheffield United
A shiny new international goalkeeper from Atletico Madrid, a lovely injection of temporary Chilean goals via Villarreal and a Mason Holgate. But most importantly, good to confirm that neither Ivo Grbic nor Ben Brereton Diaz, as well as their representatives, are arrogant enough to eat sandwiches in transfer meetings.

Manchester City
Signing one phenomenally prodigious forward from River Plate every 12 months on the proviso they can be borrowed and seasoned for a little longer is really sensible business when you think about it. Strange no-one else tries it.

Also, with West Ham struggling to shift Pablo Fornals, Nottingham Forest were the only Premier League club to raise more money through player departures this month, despite none of the players Manchester City received fees for (Nahuel Ferraresi, Morgan Rogers through a 25 per cent sell-on clause and Alfie Harrison) ever actually making an appearance for them. And that’s without including the £6m West Ham have paid to borrow Kalvin Phillips for a bit.

If you ignore those 115 charges they’ve absolutely nailed FFP you know.

Bournemouth
With one forward reaching their peak form at the age of 26 after emerging as a phenomenal young talent and fading into relative obscurity after a failed Premier League move before properly honing their skills, it’s at least worth a punt to see if ex-Manchester City striker Enes Unal can follow a similar path to Dominic Solanke really.

Arsenal
One way of not embarking on a month-long winter transfer pursuit before falling hilariously and uncomfortably publicly flat on one’s face is to simply not try and sign Dusan Vlahovic, Mykhaylo Mudryk or Moises Caicedo, and fair play for that.

Jurgen Klopp
There’s a man who realises the sacrifices needed in a quiet, entirely unnewsworthy transfer window.

Jorg Schmadtke
Not bad work if you can get it for a bloke whose final month in the job was largely spent listening to Klopp telling him he was knackered while watching myriad players be recalled from loans.

Losers

The finance nerds
You won, Profit and Sustainability Rules. Enjoy the money, I hope it makes you very happy. Dear Lord, what a sad little life, Profit and Sustainability Rules. You ruined our January transfer window, completely, so you could give Everton a points deduction, but I hope now you get some lessons in grace and decorum because you have all the grace of Newcastle trying to raise funds by selling players to Saudi Arabia.

Nottingham Forest
Fair play to Lyon for maximising the fun and dangling the prospect of a book-balancing £30m in front of a slightly desperate Nottingham Forest with hours of the window remaining.

The Premier League side acted in the usual manner, losing the entirety of their heads, bidding for about 427 keepers and randomly trying to sign Chuba Akpom for no apparent reason. If that is your panicked mid-season answer, just change the sodding question. And probably don’t make the keeper Newcastle dropped in the Championship eight years ago an option in that multiple choice either.

Brentford
Feels a bit like they might have cursed themselves into Nathan Collins being their record signing forever. Failed moves for Brennan Johnson, Nicolas Gonzalez and Antonio Nusa all in the space of the last few months does not bode well on that front.

But they did make one of the greatest Like A New Signings ever, as well as adding an actual left-back. Still, that money might burn a perennial hole in Thomas Frank’s pocket.

Fulham
They don’t half love their late transfer nonsense. No Premier League club made more deadline day signings in summer 2022 (four), January 2023 (two) or summer 2023 (two). Aston Villa, Burnley and Nottingham Forest beat Fulham in January 2024 but it was not for the want of trying.

Wonder what Armando Broja makes of having to settle for a club which was rejected by Sebastien Haller, Said Benrahma, Hugo Ekitike, Rayan Cherki and Silas Katompa Mvumpa on the final day?

The Chelsea striker’s only Premier League goal since October 2022 came against the Cottagers so he should at least look brilliant in training.

West Ham
There are two striking similarities between West Ham’s January 2022 and 2024 transfer windows: the targeting of Kalvin Phillips; and the sense of an opportunity missed.

A record bid for then-Leeds midfielder Phillips summed up a month in which the Hammers, in the words of David Moyes “tried to be ambitious” but ultimately failed to make any first-team recruits.

They were 5th, a point outside the Champions League places when that window closed. Trying to simultaneously balance a Europa League campaign saw them slip to 7th, 15 points off 4th as a small squad and Michail Antonio’s hamstrings were ultimately crushed by the challenge.

Moyes will likely have similar passive-aggressive explanations about not wanting to make signings for the sake of it, not needing “to pad the squad out”, but the Hammers have already looked stretched in recent weeks and back-up players have shown they cannot be relied upon consistently to carry much if any of the load properly.

West Ham still look short in familiar areas of past neglect and another genuine push for European qualification seems likely to be undermined. But at least they finally bagged Phillips for a few months oh he’s had a shocker on his debut.

Fabio Silva
Very possibly the worst Premier League record signing ever. Wolves paid £35.6m in September 2020 for four Premier League goals – the last of which came in May 2021 – and three separate loan spells, with Silva’s contract at Molineux still having more than two years left to run.

A reminder that that transfer was being investigated by Portuguese authorities at one point. Jorge Mendes has a lot to answer for but let him pull a few strings at Forest first; it’s difficult to see any issues in the continuation of that working relationship.

Sean Dyche and Everton
The last January signings they made were Wout Weghorst and Dele Alli respectively. Farhad Moshiri must have had a fair few missed calls this month.

Manchester United
The last January signing they made was not quite Wout Weghorst; add that to the list of things Marcel Sabitzer must answer for. But Manchester United being unable to bring anyone in due to financial restrictions, while sending four players who they purchased for a combined £125.6m out for mid-season loans, all of whom they signed at least three years ago, sums their situation up neatly.

Maxwel Cornet
Linked with a move to Selhurst Park but never did quite complete Step Three of his unprecedented uninterrupted claret and blue tour of the Premier League. Presumably Aston Villa-bound in the summer to get back on track.

Edu
Contract termination merchant. Put him up against a proper opponent like Cedric Soares and he is exposed.

Chelsea
Boring sods.