© EuroFootball.com
On January 31st, Monday, European football clubs had their last chance to strengthen their squads before the second part of the season, earn from sales, or reduce the number of players in the team - on January 1st, the winter transfer market closed, which will reopen only in the summer.
As 2005 came to a close, there was no shortage of transfers on the last day, and EuroFootball.com provides an overview of the most interesting ones.
As active as in previous years were English and Scottish clubs. In the Premier League, "Tottenham" spent the most, while "Nottingham Forest" from the lower league acquired defender M. Dawson and midfielder A. Reid for a total of 8 million pounds, while Scottish "Rangers" redeemed B. Ferguson for 4.5 million pounds.
"Aston Villa" spent just over a million acquiring E. Djemba-Djemba, who was not in favor at "Man Utd". Other English clubs spent almost no money - "Birmingham" managed to borrow W. Pandiani, "Everton" loaned M. Arteta from Gravesen, "Bolton" signed a deal with V. Candela, "Southampton" borrowed H. Camara from "Wolves", who had recently played for "Celtic", which loaned C. Bellamy from "Newcastle".
Quite active on the last day were also Italian clubs, especially ambitious "Fiorentina", spending almost 20 million euros and giving two players for two young talents - V. Bojinov and G. Pazzini. There were departures from "Atalanta" with D. Zenoni moving to "Udinese", along with young R. De Martino leaving "Roma" for a Swiss club. The only new "Roma" player became the Portuguese A. Xavier, who had recently been without a club.
Also reducing the number of players was the Italian champions "Milan" - former team defender F. Coloccini signed a six-year contract with "Deportivo", while the club's defender M. Donadel was loaned to "Fiorentina". Meanwhile, M. Stankevicius's "Brescia" was joined by Swiss J. Vonlanthen from "PSV" on a half-year loan agreement.
Not many major Spanish, French, and German clubs' leadership worked on January 31st, as they either made almost no changes in the team line-up or had already made them earlier. Among the interesting transfers were the renting of J. Jones from "Bayer", defender M. Djetou's move to E. Jankausko's "Nice", the loan of H. Peralta from Milan's "Inter" to "Albacete", and C. Karembeu's transfer to "Bastia".
Everyone was once again surprised by Donetsk's "Shakhtar", as the Ukrainian vice-champion bought another Brazilian - this time almost 8 million euros for "Santos" defender Elano Blumer. After N. Anelka's move to "Fenerbahce", the second Frenchman to move to Turkey was F. Ribery, whom "Galatasaray" bought from "Metz".
Summary of the last day's transfers:
Nicolas Anelka - (7 million euros)
Henri Camara, "Wolves" - (loaned)
Craig Bellamy - (loaned)
Mehdi Nafti - (loaned)
Walter Pandiani - (loaned)
Michael Dawson and Andy Reid, "Nottingham" - (total of 8 million pounds)
Mikel Arteta - (loaned)
Eric Djemba Djemba - (1.35 million euros)
Continue with the list of players and their transfers.
