Day After Deadline Day

Hello!!!
Doing a football blog after a long time. I have just captured emotions of my friend who is a Chelsea fan & what I felt about the transfers with also a peek into what lies ahead for Arsenal in month of February. And last but not the least - the cricket carnival is set upon us starting Feb 19th, so a quick preview of who I think are favorites for the World cup.

Who says Roman has lost interest!!
Good Lord….what a night..full of drama….the amount of money splashed would certainly make Plattini sick :P

Firstly, signing one of biggest stars in EPL is an achievement and considering he’s 26 and still has best years in him is a +ve sign. However 50m pounds is huge money and comes with great risk. Certainly it wouldn’t be bad as it turned out with Shevchenko since Torres is proven in EPL, but Ancelotti will be under severe pressure to get the best out of Torres to justify this record breaking deal! Additionally Roman will be hoping the 70m + money he has spent in a day (21m pounds + Nameja Matic for Luiz deal) proves to be a good investment and gives him the trophy that has eluded him for 6 years.
Now comes the scrutiny, I would certainly like to know how much Ancelotti was involved in both of these deals… because he has sent out 3 promising youngsters and has brought in 2 senior players (though young!) into the squad. Out of the 3 outgoing players on loan, Sturridge was the one which I did not like. He was starting to show some good football when coming as a substitute. Atleast he would have been a competition for Malouda. Its makes sense to send one striker out since we have 5 strikers now, but Sturridge could have been used as a winger due to his pace.
Plus how does this all affect the 23 man squad with 7 home grown players..i m not sure. We have sent out 3 home grown players and bought 2 outside players! Also I too believe that this might mean exit for Drogba in summer as Chelsea certainly would like to cash in on Drogba when he’s still in form, and considering Real Madrid have already enquired about him.

It remains to be seen how these signings help us fight for the title, but hope it does help us remain in all 3 competitions till the end. Torres is going to have a special debut of his life, playing Liverpool. I expect both players to play on Sunday. I’ll check if there is a screening this Sunday of the match, if yes then I’ll go for sure….

Lastly seeing all this activity yesterday, I am sure SAF and Wenger would have texted each other and laughed off on how both Chelsea and Liverpool have wasted big money in a window which according to SAF “has no quality” !!

Cheers..
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Hope the hype of transfers is justified by the players
It works both ways, if you are in the market and you do decent purchases then you strengthen the squad and also it gives encouragement to other players to perform. If you don’t, you could be criticized for not making use of the opportunity. And it is not that SAF and Wenger do not want to sign anyone in Jan window, they are mostly concerned about the inflated prices. Hence they scout for young local and native hidden talent from Europe and sign in summers. So far what I have seen in this season is both Man U and Arsenal does not have depth in the squad… if the first team does not play well they seem to lose the grip of the match. It is only some huge luck that Man U are top and Arsenal/City & Chelsea can consider themselves to be in race for the title. Wenger especially should have tried to sign a CB, if not long term at least on loan basis till end of the season. In that respect, Chelsea did the right thing and went ahead and brought players who they wanted and same with Liverpool. Although with Liverpool it is the start of rebuilding process and we should see them completely over hauling the current squad in coming 2 seasons and then launch a fresh challenge for PL and CL title.

And the biggest loser in whole drama yesterday was Newcastle United. I feel for them. :( They won the Championship and got promoted to PL and were doing really well in 9th place. Then their manager got sacked, although Pardew is good in managing resources, the one earlier wasn’t that bad either. Actually very little to choose between the two. And in transfer window they had to let go their best striker in Andy Carroll. And whatever money they have got most of it will be pocketed by their owner Mike Ashley leaving very little for summer transfers. Hope they don’t get demoralized by this and continue to give their best on the field and actually stay up in the league for many seasons to come.
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No time for Valentine celebrations for Arsenal in month of February
February promises to be another busy month with four Premier League games, an FA Cup tie at Leyton Orient, a trip to Wembley for the Carling Cup Final and the small matter of a UEFA Champions League clash with Barcelona at Emirates Stadium. All this with fresh injury concerns to Samir Nasri, our player of the season so far. But good news could be the return of Vermaelen. But we cannot have any complains, we should feel we are good enough to beat anybody anytime. Nervous days ahead.
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Bat meets the Ball!!!
In a week or few all the countries would start descending on the sub continent for what promises to be a extravagant action of cricket. Like Common wealth games, once again India has found itself unprepared with one of the biggest stadium to host match against England. Yes. Eden Gardens at Kolkata will not be the venue for the game against England and will be played at Bangalore instead. And once again petty politics in the administration has come to the fore. I hope the matter is resolved quickly and we begin with epic which is World Cup 2011.
1) On paper, the hosts INDIA look very strong with batting line up boasting of Sachin Tendulkar, Viru Sehwag, Virat Kohli and power hitters Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan.
2) Having beaten England in the VB Series, the current champions AUSTRALIA can never be counted out. The players will be full of confidence going into World Cup and a lot depends on how players like Shane Watson, Ricky Ponting, Cameron White and Hussey brothers play.
3) They carry the tag of chokers, but this unit of SOUTH AFRICA is very good. Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Tsotso can be a handful in any format of the game. Plus they have very dangerous AB DeVilliers supported by ever consistent and reliable Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis.
4) The 4th team could either be SRI LANKA or ENGLAND. On current form it looks like the Lankan Tigers are on the wane and England are blooming bright with their young side. The loss to Aussies in ODI should be seen as minor blip and Strauss will want to correct that as soon as they hit ground running in the World Cup. They are the T20 champions for good reason and they should believe in themselves to reach the Final Four. Sri Lanka are a clever side and can be deceptive but their preparation has not been great as most of the games against the West Indies got rained off.

So here's hoping that the Semis line-up will be India, Australia, South Africa and England with Sri Lanka as dark horses. I wish good luck to other teams to do well and entertain the crowd as much as possible.
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That's all I had to share, thanks for reading and leaving insightful comments.