The Fußball Chatter

Clubs are pretty cautious when it comes to the January transfer window from trying to get a big signing midway to the season in savaging their season to clubs playing hardball to get more money from the transfer. Still, millions are spent during the window and with the January window closing, here are the ten most expensive January transfer signings. Juan Mata (Chelsea to Manchester United £37m) David Moyes made a big coup to save his job by signing Spanish midfielder Juan Mata from Chelsea for a club record fee of £37 million in January 2014. Mata was one of the most creative players during his time with Chelsea with 33 goals and 63 assists, winning the Champions League in 2012. However, after falling out with José Mourinho, Mata left London for Manchester where he has made 208 appearances for the Red Devils, scoring 44 goals. Alex Teixeira (Shakhtar Donetsk to Jiangsu Suning £38m) China have been putting their feet in the football world by challenging Europe's eli

La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A were in show this past weekend plus the fourth round of the FA Cup took place this past weekend with some interesting results. Here are some of the highlights. FA Cup action The fourth round of the FA Cup started on Friday with Manchester United knocking Arsenal out of the Cup with a 3-1 win. Tottenham's injury woes have come back to bite them as they lost to Crystal Palace 2-0 while Manchester City and Chelsea went through to the fifth round of the Cup. The shocks of the round were League 1 side AFC Wimbledon knocking out West Ham United 4-2 and Championship side Millwall eliminating Everton, beating them 3-2 at The Den. Wolves and Brighton will play replays after their games ended in a draw. Six in six for Barça Following their defeat in the Copa Del Rey against Sevilla on Wednesday, Barcelona went back to winning ways and made it six straight wins in La Liga after beating city rivals Girona 2-0 yesterday at the Montilivi. Nelson

Higuaín signs for Chelsea  Argentine forward Gonzalo Higuaín has finally completed his loan move to Chelsea from Juventus. Higuaín spent the first half of the season on loan at AC Milan where he scored 8 goals in 22 games in all competitions for the Rossenori. He is now reunited with Chelsea boss Mauricio Sarri as they previously worked together at Napoli.  Speaking on Chelsea's official website, he said, "When the opportunity to join Chelsea presented itself, I had to take it." "It's a team I've always liked that has a lot of history, a wonderful stadium and they play in the Premier League, a league I've always wanted to play in."  The signing of Higuaín is a big win for Sarri and Chelsea having struggled for goals this season from their season. However, Higuaín will be unavailable for Chelsea's second leg game against Tottenham in the EFL Cup tonight and it seems to be the end for Álvaro Morata who is likely to go back to La Li

Barcelona have been busy this January transfer window and they have made their biggest signing in beating Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain to sign Ajax and Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong. The highly-rated 21 year old have been sort after for a while now with Ajax in a title race in the Eredivise and are in the knockout stages of the Champions League. So who is Frenkie de Jong? Frenkie de Hong was born on May 12th, 1997 in Arkel, Netherlands. De Jong started off his player career in Willem II where he played in the youth setup before making his  Eredivise debut against ADO Den Haag in May 2015. Later that year, he moved to Ajax Amsterdam where he has made just 42 appearances in the Eredivise for the Dutch giants but has built such interest from the European giants like Barcelona and Manchester City. De Jong plays in central midfield but can play defensive midfield as well as centre-back highlighting his versatility. De Jong is a comfortable passer of the ball but is a

We are now at the second half of the season where points become more important in determining the success of your season whether it's at the top or bottom end of the table. Here are the highlights from the weekend. Liverpool survive Palace chaos Crystal Palace shocked Manchester City at the Etihad and we're looking to do the same thing against Liverpool at Anfield in Saturday. Palace went in front in the first half from Andros Townsend after a good run of play from the Eagles with Wilfried Zaha beating James Milner, who played at right-back. Liverpool responded in the second half with Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino scoring but poor defending let Palace hit back from James Tomkins. Salah scored again to restore Liverpool's lead, capitalizing on an error from Speroni. Nerves were raised when James Milner was sent off but Sadio Mané scored to seal the points for the Reds deep in added time while Max Meyer scored to end the game 4-3 to Liverpool and hold their plac

Arsenal V Chelsea: EPL Arsenal host Chelsea at the Emirates on Saturday with Arsenal 5th in the table, six points behind Chelsea. The Gunners run of form doesn't look good, winning just twice in their last five league games without keeping a clean sheet plus their troubles in the transfer window and the situation with Mesut Özil. Chelsea have been managing well, winning three of their last five league games with Eden Hazard playing the False 9 due to a lack of cutting edge up front. With Manchester United breathing down their necks, a win is a must for both sides in their pursuit for the top 4 but Arsenal have won just one game against teams from the top 6 this season and they need to take points off their rivals. Real Madrid V Sevilla: La Liga Real Following their second leg loss to Leganes in the Copa del Rey on Wednesday, Los Blancos have now lost ten games in all competitions. One more than they had in the whole of last season. This weekend, they face surprise packa

Tottenham Hotspur lost 1-0 against Manchester United on Sunday at Wembley, losing the opportunity to cut the gap from Liverpool to six points. Things have now gone bad to worst with striker Harry Kane out of action till March 28th an ankle ligament injury with Son Heung-Min also unavailable as he has now gone for the Asian Cup with South Korea. While many would say it's Spurs, they always choke, Spurs have gone really well this season but they're facing the consequences of having a very thin squad fighting in different fronts. Everyone knows Spurs have a fantastic starting XI with Hugo Lloris, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli and Harry Kane as their spine for about three seasons now. Under Mauricio Pochettino, Spurs have notion that they have a soft spot, finishing in the top three for three straight seasons and having their highest points tally in Premier League history with 86 points in 2016/17, which is good to win the league in 15/16 and

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Čech has announced that he will be hanging his boots and gloves at the end of the season. Čech, 36, made the announcement from his twitter handle saying, "This is my 20th season as a professional player and it has been 20 years since I signed my first professional contract, so it feels like the right time to announce that I will retire at the end of this season." He goes further stating, "Having played 15 years in the Premier League, and won every single trophy possible, I feel like I have achieved everything I have set out to achieve. I will continue to work hard at Arsenal to hopefully win one more trophy this season, then I am looking forward to seeing what life holds for me off the pitch." Čech has been a mainstay in the Premier League since signing for Chelsea in 2004 from Rennes. He stayed at the Blues for 11 years winning 4 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups, 3 EFL Cups, the Europa League and the Champions League. He signed for Ar

The Bundesliga is still on break and there was no Serie A action with the Coppa Italia this weekend leaving just action from the Premier League and La Liga. Here are the highlights from the weekend. David Saves United Manchester United got their first win against teams in the top 6 in Tottenham, beating the Lilywhites 1-0 at Wembley on Sunday. An end-to-end game, United got their moment when Paul Pogba laid a ball for Marcus Rashford, which the Manchester native converted just before halftime. Spurs responded in the second half but David de Gea was the guy that sealed the points for United making 11 saves to keep United's winning streak going under Ole Gunnar Solskjær to 5 in the league and takes them six points behind 4th placed Chelsea, level on points with Arsenal who are 5th while Spurs lose ground on Liverpool and Manchester City. Liverpool bounce back Liverpool returned to winning ways following their defeats against Manchester City in the league and Wolves in

Spanish midfielder Cesc Fàbregas has moved from Chelsea to Ligue 1 side AS Monaco last night. It's unclear what the fee is as many speculate that it is between eight to ten million euros. His move away from Chelsea was clear from his emotional farewell when he was subbed off in Chelsea's FA Cup win against Nottingham Forest last weekend but Chelsea put the move on hold in order to get a replacement with speculation surfacing that Chelsea are after Nicolo Barella of Cagliari and Zenit's Leandro Paredes. Fàbregas leaves the Premier League with 2 league titles, making 350 appearances (the most from a Spaniard), scoring 50 times and is second in the Premier League's all-time assist providers with 111 assists, second behind to Ryan Giggs. Fàbregas was out of favour from Mauricio Sarri playing just six times in the Premier League this season with N'golo Kante and Jorginho starters for the Blues in midfield. Fàbregas will be reunited with former Arsenal teammate a

The Premier League returns this weekend following FA Cup action last week and the biggest match-up is Spurs facing Manchester United at Wembley on Sunday which is an important fixture for both sides particularly for the managers. Tottenham have put themselves in the conversation of this season's title race as they are currently third in the table, six points behind league leaders Liverpool. Spurs won five of their last sevn league games last month losing to Arsenal and Wolves. They have also been scoring goals at will, netting 23 times with Korean forward Son Heung-Min scoring six times during that period. This will also be the last game Son will play for Spurs before leaving for the Asian Cup. Against the top 6 this season, Spurs have gotten only six points with two wins and three defeats and with how tight the title race is, games between teams in the top 6 now have more importance. The game will carry a lot of attention surrounding Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino. The Ar

Bayern Munich have always looked for the best talent possible in the Bundesliga which has enabled them to dominate the German top flight poaching the likes of Michael Ballack, Mario Götze, Robert Lewandowski, Matt Hummels, Manuel Neuer, Leon Goretzka, etc. With Matt Hummels and Jerome Boateng ageing, they have signed French defender Benjamin Pavard from Stuttgart for a reported fee of €35 million. So who is this World Cup winning defender? Benjamin Pavard was born on March 28th, 1996 in Maubeuge, France. A town close to the Belgian border. He stated his playing career at his hometown club US Jeumont before moving to Ligue 1 side Lille in 2005 where he stayed for eleven years. He made his debut for Lille on January 31st 2015 in a Ligue 1 tie against FC Nantes. However, across his two seasons with Lille, he made just 21 appearances before deciding to leave Lille for pastures new. Pavard moved to German side VfB Stuttgart in August 2016 as Stuttgart were playing in 2. Bundesliga

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah was named CAF Player of the Year for the second year running. The Egyptian had a stellar 2018 leading Liverpool to the Champions League Final, winning the Golden Boot in the 2017/18 season as well as scoring 38 goals with 18 assists for club and country last year. Only Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez made more goal contributions last calendar year. Salah saw off competition from Liverpool teammate Sadio Mané of Senegal and Arsenal's Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang of Gabon. All three nominees were included in CAF's Best XI with Liverpool's Naby Këita of Guinea, Atletico's Thomas Partey of Ghana and City's Riyad Mahrez of Algeria in midfield. In defence, it consisted of Ivory Coast players Serge Aurier and Eric Bailly, Senegal's Kalidou Koulibaly and Morocco's Mehdi Benatia with Denis Onyango of Uganda between the sticks. In other awards from last night, Morocco's Achraf Hakimi won Young Player of the