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The Premier League signings of the summer (so far):

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Steven CaulkerWe are just over halfway through the transfer window and although there has been huge speculation regarding the big sagas (Rooney, Bale, Suarez, Fabregas etc.) in most cases, pen has not been put topaper. Still, there has been some brilliant signings by Premier league teams.

The team that has been mentioned most in this window are probably Tottenham. Primarily the talk involves their Welsh wing wizard, Gareth Bale. It seems clear now that he will go to Real Madrid. Secondarily, though they have made some excellent signings.

Without Gareth Bale last year Tottenham, hypothetically, would have scored 2 less than 18th place finishing Wigan. Fortunately for Spurs Bale did play and they scored 19 more than Wigan! This season they (presumably) won’t have Bale to score 21 goals, so they’ll need somebody else to bring the fire power.

Roberto Soldado has been bought for £26million and he can certainly provide goals. Soldado scored 60 goals in 89 starts in La Liga, most of which were from inside the 18-yard box. He is a good old-fashioned goal poacher. He almost guarantees you a 15-goal season. Spurs picked up a Bale replacement for £7m, Nacer Chadli. The 23-year-old winger from Belgium has a lot of pace and skill and he scored 14 last season in the Eredvise.

To create these goals, they need someone who can drive into attacking positions and play neat through balls. Someone that can do that is the Brazil international they just signed from Corinthians, Paulinho.

Paulinho shone in the Club World Cup and Confederations Cup. He can sit deep, but prefers to play as a playmaker in attack. It shows the level of promise that Paulinho demonstrates, that Tottenham had to fend off interest from Real Madrid to sign the 24 year old.

Liverpool have been relatively low key this summer in terms of incoming transfers. They’ve just gone about their business quietly and got the deals done. The most significant of the 4 deals they have finished perhaps is the goalkeeper signed from Sunderland, Simon Mignolet. The successor to outgoing keeper (on loan) Pepe Reina. Mignolet has shown that he is ready for a big move and Liverpool were the first club in for him with the fee believed to be around £10m.

Last year Swansea City managed to win the Capital One cup, and as a result qualify for the Europa league, they also finished in a very respectable 9th place.

All this without a recognised striker. Danny Graham spent most of his time on the bench when he played for the Swans in the first half of the season. Spanish midfielder Michu had to fill in up front for the whole campaign and what a job he did of it. This summer there will be no issue of that happening again, because Michael Laudrup has signed a very good out-and-out striker. Wilfried Bony has arrived in South Wales for a Swansea record £12m. He scored twice on his debut against Malmo and looks like he could be a very good signing. He is a powerful target man who is unbelievable in the air. Bony has a similar playing style to Didier Drogba. To make things even better for Swansea fans, now they will get to enjoy Michu playing his preferred position of attacking midfield.

Most long ball teams have a player who tries to get the ball down and show a bit of class. Stoke have Jon Walters and Matthew Etherington, Wimbledon had the great Laurie Cunningham. Anyway, it seems about time for West Ham to get their flair player. Who have they signed this summer? Andy Carroll!

Andy Carroll is not most people’s cup of tea. Brendan Rodgers certainly can’t stand the “ugliness” of Andy Carroll’s style. Andy Carroll fits the style of the current West Ham team perfectly and his form towards the end of last season was at times outstanding. A sort of steal as well because £15m is £20m below the £35m Liverpool paid for his services a couple of years ago.

The most cost efficient club however has not been West Ham or Tottenham or Swansea, it has been West Brom.

West Bromwich Albion have bought one proven goal scorer in English football and one world class centre-back for a grand total of… £0! Nicolas Anelka will score goals for them. I am confident of this, because he has scored numerous goals in the premiership for Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Bolton and Chelsea. Diego Lugano on the other hand has no experience in English football, but he has experience on the world stage.

He captained Uruguay to World Cup and Confederation cup semi-finals and to a fabulous Copa America victory. Pedigree or what? If Lugano can find his feet playing against some of the best strikers in the world, then I’m sure a Lugano-Olsson partnership could be one of the best in the league next season.

With James Vaughan, Simeon Jackson and Grant Holt all leaving, Chris Hughton was thirsty for strikers. Norwich have quenched that thirst with an eloquent bottle of English muscle and a cheeky glass of Dutch prolificness . Gary Hooper from Celtic and Ricky Van Wolfswinkel from Sporting Lisbon are both big talents and they should be ready for the step up into the Barclays Premier League. Nathan Redmond, an England under-21 regular has signed to play on the left hand side. Javier Garrido and Martin Olsson have been bought for starting berths and for cover. The most surprising of all their transfers, however, is probably the agreement to take central midfielder Leroy Fer from FC Twente. It looked odds on that Everton would sign Fer in January and if not then definitely in the summer. Norwich hijacked that deal. It shows the expectation of Norwich, this season that a talented youngster like Fer would chose them over a well established top 6 contender like Everton.

“Steven Caulker signs for Cardiff” read the headline. ‘Why are Tottenham loaning out one of their regular starters in defence?’ most of us thought, until we read on. Tottenham selling their 2nd best centre back who is an international at 21. AVB doesn’t seem to like his only other recognised centre-half, Michael Dawson,(it took till February for Villas-Boas to start Dawson 10 times in the league) it seems preposterous that Spurs would sell Caulker. But a mistake for one team means great news for another. Cardiff have pulled off an amazing transfer getting the young, eager, talented defender for just £8m. Usually newly promoted teams go back down to the Championship because they let in too many goals and don’t have a strong enough defence. So for Cardiff to sign the 21 year old England international is brilliant. I think this has been the transfer of the window so far.

Manchester City, Chelsea, Sunderland and Southampton have all pulled off good transfers as well. Others like Manchester United and Arsenal are yet to seal any deals all we know for sure is that with just over 3 weeks to go, this transfer window, things are shaping up very tastily!

What’s your take? What’s the best signing of the summer so far?

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  • SP says:

    Out of all the stupid ideas I haveheard connected with the Gareth Bale tapping-up, the most hokey and stupid of all is the idea that Spurs would have scored 21 less goals f Bale had’t played. They wouldn’t have been starting with ten players…woul they!
    They set themselves up to maimise Bale’s skill-set, and that meant Adebayor, for instance, had to play a different role – a role that ma well have ifluenced the numbe of goals he scored. And another player would have played in a different role, with the head coach settting up to maximise ‘his’ skillset.
    Might as well do the same for RVP, Louis Suarez or Juan Mata

  • mahi says:

    gud 1 man….

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