SoccerBlogs

The January transfer window has been closed for just over two weeks. Some might say (we're looking at you Chelsea fans)Â that it's too early to judge new recruits, others argue you've got to hit the ground running when you switch clubs mid-season. Wherever you stand on the matter, we've taken a quick glance at the impact made by January's key signings and found most wanting.

The final day of the January transfer window unfolded unlike any other. There were twists and turns aplenty – enough to satisfy the hunger of every footy fan. But the biggest surprises of the day were the ones that didn't necessarily grab the headlines.

Where was Manchester City?

Recession? Don't make me choke on my meat pie. The English Premier League once again proved that its love affair with splashing the cash has in no way waned since the market crashed several years ago.

This season's January transfer window turned out to be one of the most lucrative in memory.

Sky sacked presenter Andy Gray following new evidence of his sexist behaviour came to light. Gray and presenter Richard Keys were warned over their comments about female referee Sian Massey before last Saturday's Wolves v Liverpool match.

The English Manager is a dying breed. We've touched on this topic before. First, the English Manager was kicked out of the Top Four. Then, the English Manager was kicked out of the England squad. Now, the English Manager is getting kicked out of the Premier League.

The tide has turned.

Manchester City fans have one player to thank for keeping their side in the hunt for this season's title, Carlos Tevez. Despite Sheikh Mansour recently splashing out millions of pounds on promising players from around the globe, Carlos Tevez remains City's jewel in the crown.

"Maybe one day I'll come back and play here, but I've always said it will only be for Manchester United." Barely three weeks after declaring his allegiance to the Red Devils, David Beckham is on the verge of proving himself to be one of the biggest liars in football.

During the past two MLS offseasons, in order to maintain fitness for the following LA Galaxy campaign, David Beckham has signed a short-term loan deal with AC Milan.

Kenny Dalglish, the saviour of Liverpool Football Club, took charge as manager for the second time on Sunday but will it last?

After only six months in charge at Anfield, much to the delight of the Liverpool faithful, Roy Hodgson was dismissed on Saturday.

Not many people outside of Bolton had heard of Stuart Holden before the American bagged the winning goal against Blackburn on Saturday. Untested at club football's highest level, Holden was plucked from Houston Dynamo of MLS in January and has never looked back.

After another round of Premiership fixtures things couldn't be tighter at the top and bottom. Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea are all vying for first place as the season approaches the Christmas period. At the bottom, Avram Grant seems to have taken West Ham as far as he humanly can while Wolves, Wigan and Fulham could be following the Hammers south a division.

When Chelsea lost to Liverpool at Anfield at the beginning of November, manager Carlo Ancelotti brushed his side's defeat off as a minor blip. One month later and Chelsea's  'blip' has turned into a crisis.

Since falling to a Fernando Torres double, Chelsea have won just once out of six matches in all competitions.

In one respect, statistics are the bread and butter of professional football. Millions of dreams – not to mention millions of pounds – rest on how many points every team garners and how many goals every team scores. But once you move beyond wins, losses, draws and goals, statistics have by and large been consigned to the shadows of modern football.

Only a year and a half ago, Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley was the laughing stock of English football. The Toon Army had just been relegated to the Championship and Ashley was fighting tooth and nail to garner support from the fans.

Since installing Chris Hughton as manager in the beginning of the 2009-10 season, Newcastle's fortunes have sky-rocketed.

England experienced a cold front last week but by the time Saturday's fixtures kicked off things were already warming up. Chelsea's draw against Everton sees manager Carlo Ancelotti sweating like never before. But Ancelotti isn't the only manager in London feeling the heat.

It's been a miserable couple of weeks for Carlo Ancelotti and his players. First they lose to Liverpool at Anfield on the one day that Fernando Torres rediscovers his scoring touch. Then they grind out a victory against London neighbours Fulham, before subsequently getting thrashed at home to Sunderland and falling victim to a severe dose of bad luck at Birmingham City.

Another critical week in the Premier League saw Champions Chelsea lose their grip on top spot, Dimitar Berbatov finally justify his exorbitant transfer fee (?), Spurs steal points late... again, and Wolves win but stay in the bottom three.

Berbatov arrives.

Next to Diego Forlan, Luis Suarez was the biggest star on a Uruguayan side that reached the semi-finals of last summer's World Cup. The tough, compact Ajax striker and captain is considered an ideal candidate to thrive in a league like the Premiership. But a series of bizarre incidents now threatens to maroon the young Uruguayan's career before it really starts going places.

If you believe everything you read in the papers, then a crisis has befallen Chelsea Football Club. After a blistering start to the season in which the team could not stop scoring goals, Chelsea's superstars have been recently shooting blanks. Three losses in four games represent a crisis of sorts for any club, especially the defending champions.

The season is over a third complete yet there are still no real certainties at the top or bottom of the Premiership. Chelsea's problems continued in a defeat at St. Andrews, a stirring comeback at the Emirates gave Tottenham the North London bragging rights, Wayne Rooney returned to Old Trafford, while Liverpool piled the pressure on Hammers boss Avram Grant.

Aston Villa confirmed yesterday that former Arsenal winger Robert Pires has signed a six month contract. It was generally understood that Robert Pires would retire from the game at after being released last summer by La Liga side Villarreal. Not so.

For a brief period last week Roy Hodgson was actually enjoying his job as manager of Liverpool Football Club.

The Reds had just disposed of champions Chelsea in front of new owner John W. Henry and star striker Fernando Torres had finally shrugged off his injury concerns to nab the winning goals.

Still no sight of Wayne Rooney, but we didn't even need him. Another week of Premiership football jammed full of incident saw Manchester United narrowly avoid losing their first match, cross-town rivals Manchester City yet again fail to score at home, Spurs put their post Champions League lethargy to bed and Liverpool prove they're still a long way from they're best.

Chelsea announced yesterday that assistant manager Ray Wilkins has left the club with immediate effect. Wilkins joined Chelsea as a 17-year old apprentice in 1973 and became the club's youngest captain the following year. After a successful spell down south, Wilkins joined Manchester United in 1979 but returned to Stamford Bridge nearly three decades later in a different capacity.

The world's best defenders have yet to figure out how to handle Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. But this week, we learned about one deadly opposition that can take him down – malaria.

As of writing, it's still unclear how Didier Drogba contracted malaria.

Another game, another poor Manchester City performance, this time away to little known Lech Poznan in the Europa League. We're nearly three months into the season and we're still no closer to understanding the enigmatic Manchester City. Do they really want to win anything this year?

We're barely a quarter of the way through the season and already the ground is beginning to give way beneath a few of the Premiership's top managers. Here are managers most under scrutiny and our odds for getting the sack by the end of the year.

Avram Grant (West Ham United) – 6/5

It's only November, but West Ham are already digging in for a long relegation battle.

Another weekend of Premiership fixtures offered up some shock results, an abundance of jaw-dropping bravery, and the usual flurry of controversy. Wayne Rooney didn't play but at least he's back in Manchester and we don't have to see any more pictures of his pasty body burning under the Dubai sun.

Kaka is back! Well... sort of. After a five-month layoff, he played his first 15 minutes of top-tier football last weekend against Getafe.  It's too early to say whether Kaka has completely recovered, but during that brief appearance he looked sharp, lean, and hungry. We'll be able to make a more accurate assessment once he gets a full 90 minutes – although right now, it's hard to see when that might happen.

And another one bites the dust... Jamie Carragher is expected to be out for three months after dislocating his shoulder in last weekend's match between Liverpool and Tottenham. On the face of it, the injury is not a big shocker. The Liverpool defender is 32 years old, playing in the most physical league in the world.

The arrival of the French national team on English soil would normally get the juices flowing for most home supporters but the fact the fixture is only a friendly and lands awkwardly on a cold Wednesday evening removes some of the sting. At least Wembley will have an opportunity to take a glimpse into the future of the England team.

Here's a pretty damning statistic about the state of English football: Of the 314 goals scored by clubs in the Premier League this season, only 51 have been scored by English forwards. That's barely 16 percent.

Scour the list of top goal scorers and the only Englishmen names you'll find are players like Kevin Nolan, Marlon Harewood, and Darren Bent.

Think of the players of the season so far: Gareth Bale, Nani, Leighton Baines, Chris Brunt, Andrei Arshavin. Is it any coincidence that none of them featured in the World Cup.

And then there's Samir Nasri...

The former Marseille man had a tough inaugural season in the Premiership last year and was cruelly axed from France's World Cup squad.

The football establishment turned from confusion to blushes after it became increasingly apparent that the yellow cards picked up by Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso during Tuesday's Champions League group stages were part of a deliberate ploy by Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho.

England's World Cup agony continued yesterday when news filtered through from Zurich that Russia had scooped hosting honours in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.

England's bid finished a humiliating fourth, and last, in the race to stage the 2018 World Cup.

FIFA's technical advisers yesterday published evaluation reports of all 11 countries bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. None of them will be happy. Following four-day visits to each of the nine bid teams over the summer, FIFA found significant fault with every one of the potential hosts.

What do you get when you cross an eccentric, former footballer turned aspiring actor, with a footy team whose glory years have long since been relegated to the history books? The return of the New York Cosmos?

A new Frenchman has landed in the Big Apple and if past experience is anything to go by, he intends to take the New York Cosmos to the top of the football ladder.

Only two Premiership fixtures survived the weekend's winter weather with the Top Four seeing their clashes deferred to later in the season. While the snow delay proved much needed respite for some, how Avram Grant and Owen Coyle might have wished their matches too were postponed.

In the murky business of football agents Kia Joorabchian is a breed apart.

The Iranian-born Brit considers himself more of an investor than an agent. And in many ways, it's true. He is not licensed to represent footballers, but came to power by peddling in the "third-party" ownership of players and still exerts tremendous influence over his clients even after the ownership rules changed.

Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp has been involved in the game for over 40 years. During that time you would have thought he had seen everything. Not so. Tottenham's two most recent forays in the Champions League consecutive clashes with reigning European Champions Inter Milan have left even the wily old wheeler-dealer scratching his head in astonishment.