The British transfer record was smashed twice in an hour as Liverpool paid £35m for Newcastle’s England forward Andy Carroll and then turned around and sold Fernando Torres to Chelsea for the staggering amount of £50million.
And Chelsea were not finished there also landed Benfica’s Brazil defender David Luiz in a £25m cash-plus-player deal. Chelsea spent about £75m today while Liverpool spent £57.8m as they also completed the deal for Luis Suarez. In total Premier league clubs spent over £200m in transfer fees this month, compared to just £29m in the January window last year.
The only big name not to move was Blackpool midfielder Charlie Adam. Spurs apparently had a late bid accepted but they could not get all the paperwork completed in time.
So the big winners were Liverpool and Chelsea. Chelsea finally got the center-forward they have been chasing for the last two years, while in David Luiz they get one of the best young defenders in Europe.
Liverpool will now pair Carroll and Suarez up-front in a new look strike force that they hope will propel them into Europe next year. Many Liverpool fans are really upset with Torres about how this played out of the last couple of days and Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish fired a parting shot at Torres saying:
“There is no one individual bigger than this club. There never has been and there never will be. Players come and go, but more have come into this club than gone out. The owners have been unbelievable in the support they have shown. They understand what this club is about and are very much prepared to put their hand into their pocket. When we spoke to them about Suarez their response was, “Is there anybody else?”‘
To add more hype to the Torres deal, he is expected to make his debut his weekend at home to Liverpool. Wonder what sort of reaction he will get from the travelling Liverpool fans?
PREMIER LEAGUE DEADLINE-DAY DEALS
In: Aston Villa (Bradley), Birmingham (Martins), Blackburn (Formica, Rochina), Blackpool (Beattie, Reid), Bolton (Sturridge), Chelsea (Torres, Luiz), Everton (Vellios), Liverpool (Carroll, Suarez, Thomas), Newcastle (Ireland), West Ham (McCallum), Wolves (Basso)
Out: Aston Villa (Ireland, Osbourne), Chelsea (Mellis, Sturridge), Fulham (Marsh-Brown), Liverpool (Konchesky), Man City (Gonzalez, Tuttle), Man Utd (Stewart), Stoke (Moult, Tuncay), Sunderland (Da Silva, Reid), Tottenham (Dos Santos), West Brom (Downing), West Ham (Nouble), Wigan (Nicholls), Wolves (Davis, Keogh)
