FOOTBALL: Deadline Day

When a managerial change dominates Deadline Day, you know it’s a slow day.

True, it may have been a rather high profile managerial change with football’s worst secret being confirmed – Pep Guardiola will replace Manuel Pellegrini as Manchester City manager for next season – but even so, Deadline Day should dominate all the footballing headlines, but the best it could muster was Stoke breaking their transfer record to bring in Giannella Imbula from Porto.

January is never an overly active transfer window admittedly, but that isn’t much of an excuse when you consider past windows have served up tasty moves such as Nemanja Matic to Chelsea from Benfica, Nemanja Vidic from Spartak Moscow to Manchester United and Luis Suarez from Ajax to Liverpool.

And when you look at the gulf in spending between the top four and the bottom four it accurately reflects where the battle is in the Premier League. Between them the top four teams signed just six players, while the bottom four brought in 29 altogether. An accurate reflection on where the bigger battle is in England’s top flight division.

Not many big players are available in January, but that is a rather pathetic showing from the big-spending sides at the top.

For Imbula’s signature to be the biggest of Deadline Day proves that the appeal of it has worn off to a degree. It has been hyped into this big day full of excitement and promise and on most occasions it turns out to be 24 hours of “maybe” and “possibly”, less “definitely” or “done”. Clubs make promises that they’re looking for players but the chances that they do are slim.

Meanwhile, Manchester City have once again flaunted their lack of loyalty by throwing aside Manuel Pellegrini without as much as a minute’s thought. Pellegrini was not flawless as a manager, far from it, but he wasn’t doing a completely sub-standard job at the Etihad Stadium either. And yet as soon as Guardiola came on the market City were sniffing around him and were not slow in offering him a deal to start next season.

All credit to Pellegrini who, by his own admission, knew for a month that he would be unemployed at the end of the season for keeping his composure. He could have spoken out against City for the horrendous way they have treated him and told the media what he really thought of the moguls at the head of the organisation that is Manchester City, but rather he kept his cool and simply continued on with his weekly press conference.

That’s professionalism.

Guardiola will improve City, there’s no doubt about that and you can see why they made the move, ethical or not. Chelsea and Manchester United meanwhile will be fuming over their inability to strike first, Chelsea especially given they need a manager for next season. Letting City steal one of the best managers in the world will only serve to hinder their ability to catch up to the Citizens next season, especially if Guardiola can use his influence to bring big name players to the blue side of Manchester.

Arguably, it’s City who won Deadline Day.