Winter 2019 Transfer Confirmation Thread

[Jezza]

The January transfer window has officially begun.

[Jezza]

Christian Pulisic = Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea (58m)
Dominic Solanke = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (19m)

David Wang = Jumilla B to Wolverhampton Wanderers (Undisclosed)

Jaden Brown = Tottenham Hotspur to Huddersfield Town (Free)

Nathaniel Clyne = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (Loan)
Jason Puncheon = Crystal Palace to Huddersfield Town (Loan)
Jermaine Defoe = AFC Bournemouth to Rangers (Loan)

Updated to January 6

[K]

Umm... what currency do you use here (and did you use in previous transfer threads)? Pounds? Euros?

Last year...

[Jezza]

^ Pound.

Here's a short review of Coutinho's first year with Barcelona.

https://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2019/01/05/5c312128468aeb147d8b45ca.html

[HAL]

Oh a web page.

[K]

Thanks for the link, Jezza.

"Coutinho joined for 120 million euros, plus a further 40 million in variables..."

I wonder what "variables" means.

[Jezza]

Christian Pulisic = Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea (58m)
Dominic Solanke = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (19m)

David Wang = Jumilla B to Wolverhampton Wanderers (Undisclosed)
Brahim Diaz = Manchester City to Real Madrid (Undisclosed)
Vicente Iborra = Leicester City to Villarreal (Undisclosed)
Benjamin Pavard = Stuttgart to Bayern Munich (Undisclosed)*

Jaden Brown = Tottenham Hotspur to Huddersfield Town (Free)
Pepe = Unattached to FC Porto (Free)
Jean-Clair Todibo = Toulouse to Barcelona (Free)*

Nathaniel Clyne = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (Loan)
Jason Puncheon = Crystal Palace to Huddersfield Town (Loan)
Jermaine Defoe = AFC Bournemouth to Rangers (Loan)
Steven Davis = Southampton to Rangers (Loan)
Stefano Okaka = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Alexander Sorloth = Crystal Palace to Gent (Loan)
Fousseni Diabete = Leicester City to Sivasspor (Loan)

* = Move will be finalised in the summer transfer window

Updated to January 10

[Jezza]

Frenkie de Jong = Ajax to Barcelona (65m)*
Christian Pulisic = Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea (58m)
Dominic Solanke = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (19m)

David Wang = Jumilla B to Wolverhampton Wanderers (Undisclosed)
Brahim Diaz = Manchester City to Real Madrid (Undisclosed)
Vicente Iborra = Leicester City to Villarreal (Undisclosed)
Benjamin Pavard = Stuttgart to Bayern Munich (Undisclosed)*
Cesc Fabregas = Chelsea to AS Monaco (Undisclosed)
Manolo Gabbiadini = Southampton to Sampdoria (Undisclosed)
Ryan Babel = Besiktas to Fulham (Undisclosed)
Chris Mepham = Brentford to AFC Bournemouth (Undisclosed)
Krzysztof Piatek = Genoa to AC Milan (Undisclosed)

Jaden Brown = Tottenham Hotspur to Huddersfield Town (Free)
Pepe = Unattached to FC Porto (Free)
Jean-Clair Todibo = Toulouse to Barcelona (Free)*
Ashley Cole = Unattached to Derby County (Free)
Demba Ba = Unattached to Istanbul Basaksheir (Free)
Mario Balotelli = Nice to Marseille (Free)
Jose Antonio Reyes = Unattached to Extremadura UD (Free)
John Obi Mikel = Unattached to Middlesbrough (Free)
Bakary Sako = West Ham United to Crystal Palace (Free)

Nathaniel Clyne = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (Loan)
Jason Puncheon = Crystal Palace to Huddersfield Town (Loan)
Jermaine Defoe = AFC Bournemouth to Rangers (Loan)
Steven Davis = Southampton to Rangers (Loan)
Stefano Okaka = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Alexander Sorloth = Crystal Palace to Gent (Loan)
Fousseni Diabete = Leicester City to Sivasspor (Loan)
Martin Zeegelaar = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Oumar Niasse = Everton to Cardiff City (Loan)
Kevin-Prince Boateng = Sassuolo to Barcelona (Loan)
Wesley Hoedt = Southampton to Celta Vigo (Loan)
Gonzalo Higuain = Juventus to Chelsea (Loan)
Lucas Perri = Sao Paulo to Crystal Palace (Loan)
Victor Moses = Chelsea to Fenerbahce (Loan)
Alvaro Morata = Chelsea to Atletico Madrid (Loan)

* = Move will be finalised in the summer transfer window

Updated to January 28

[Jezza]

Frenkie de Jong = Ajax to Barcelona (65m)*
Christian Pulisic = Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea (58m)
Dominic Solanke = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (19m)
Rabbi Matondo = Manchester City to Schalke (9.6m)

David Wang = Jumilla B to Wolverhampton Wanderers (Undisclosed)
Brahim Diaz = Manchester City to Real Madrid (Undisclosed)
Vicente Iborra = Leicester City to Villarreal (Undisclosed)
Benjamin Pavard = Stuttgart to Bayern Munich (Undisclosed)*
Cesc Fabregas = Chelsea to AS Monaco (Undisclosed)
Manolo Gabbiadini = Southampton to Sampdoria (Undisclosed)
Ryan Babel = Besiktas to Fulham (Undisclosed)
Chris Mepham = Brentford to AFC Bournemouth (Undisclosed)
Krzysztof Piatek = Genoa to AC Milan (Undisclosed)
Karlan Grant = Charlton Athletic to Huddersfield Town (Undisclosed)

Jaden Brown = Tottenham Hotspur to Huddersfield Town (Free)
Pepe = Unattached to FC Porto (Free)
Jean-Clair Todibo = Toulouse to Barcelona (Free)*
Ashley Cole = Unattached to Derby County (Free)
Demba Ba = Unattached to Istanbul Basaksheir (Free)
Mario Balotelli = Nice to Marseille (Free)
Jose Antonio Reyes = Unattached to Extremadura UD (Free)
John Obi Mikel = Unattached to Middlesbrough (Free)
Bakary Sako = West Ham United to Crystal Palace (Free)

Nathaniel Clyne = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (Loan)
Jason Puncheon = Crystal Palace to Huddersfield Town (Loan)
Jermaine Defoe = AFC Bournemouth to Rangers (Loan)
Steven Davis = Southampton to Rangers (Loan)
Stefano Okaka = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Alexander Sorloth = Crystal Palace to Gent (Loan)
Fousseni Diabete = Leicester City to Sivasspor (Loan)
Martin Zeegelaar = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Oumar Niasse = Everton to Cardiff City (Loan)
Kevin-Prince Boateng = Sassuolo to Barcelona (Loan)
Wesley Hoedt = Southampton to Celta Vigo (Loan)
Gonzalo Higuain = Juventus to Chelsea (Loan)
Lucas Perri = Sao Paulo to Crystal Palace (Loan)
Victor Moses = Chelsea to Fenerbahce (Loan)
Alvaro Morata = Chelsea to Atletico Madrid (Loan)
Denis Suarez = Barcelona to Arsenal (Loan)
Georges-Kevin Nkoudou = Tottenham Hotspur to AS Monaco (Loan)

* = Move will be finalised in the summer transfer window

Updated to January 30

[Jezza]

Frenkie de Jong = Ajax to Barcelona (65m)*
Christian Pulisic = Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea (58m)
Miguel Almiron = Atlanta to Newcastle United (20m)
Dominic Solanke = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (19m)
Jonny Castro Otto = Atletico Madrid to Wolverhampton Wanderers (15m)
Emerson = Atletico Mineiro to Barcelona (10.5m)
Rabbi Matondo = Manchester City to Schalke (9.6m)
Ante Palaversa = Hadjuk Split to Manchester City (7m)
Leandro Bacuna = Reading to Cardiff City (4m)

David Wang = Jumilla B to Wolverhampton Wanderers (Undisclosed)
Brahim Diaz = Manchester City to Real Madrid (Undisclosed)
Vicente Iborra = Leicester City to Villarreal (Undisclosed)
Benjamin Pavard = Stuttgart to Bayern Munich (Undisclosed)*
Cesc Fabregas = Chelsea to AS Monaco (Undisclosed)
Manolo Gabbiadini = Southampton to Sampdoria (Undisclosed)
Ryan Babel = Besiktas to Fulham (Undisclosed)
Chris Mepham = Brentford to AFC Bournemouth (Undisclosed)
Krzysztof Piatek = Genoa to AC Milan (Undisclosed)
Karlan Grant = Charlton Athletic to Huddersfield Town (Undisclosed)
Almamy Toure = AS Monaco to Eintracht Frankfurt (Undisclosed)
Tudor-Cristian Baluta = FC Viitorul Constanta to Brighton (Undisclosed)
Jan Mlakar = NK Maribor to Brighton (Undisclosed)
Peter Crouch = Stoke City to Burnley (Undisclosed)

Jaden Brown = Tottenham Hotspur to Huddersfield Town (Free)
Pepe = Unattached to FC Porto (Free)
Jean-Clair Todibo = Toulouse to Barcelona (Free)*
Ashley Cole = Unattached to Derby County (Free)
Demba Ba = Unattached to Istanbul Basaksheir (Free)
Mario Balotelli = Nice to Marseille (Free)
Jose Antonio Reyes = Unattached to Extremadura UD (Free)
John Obi Mikel = Unattached to Middlesbrough (Free)
Bakary Sako = West Ham United to Crystal Palace (Free)
Sulley Muntari = Unattached to Albacete (Free)
Lazar Markovic = Liverpool to Fulham (Free)

Nathaniel Clyne = Liverpool to AFC Bournemouth (Loan)
Jason Puncheon = Crystal Palace to Huddersfield Town (Loan)
Jermaine Defoe = AFC Bournemouth to Rangers (Loan)
Steven Davis = Southampton to Rangers (Loan)
Stefano Okaka = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Alexander Sorloth = Crystal Palace to Gent (Loan)
Fousseni Diabete = Leicester City to Sivasspor (Loan)
Martin Zeegelaar = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Oumar Niasse = Everton to Cardiff City (Loan)
Kevin-Prince Boateng = Sassuolo to Barcelona (Loan)
Wesley Hoedt = Southampton to Celta Vigo (Loan)
Gonzalo Higuain = Juventus to Chelsea (Loan)
Lucas Perri = Sao Paulo to Crystal Palace (Loan)
Victor Moses = Chelsea to Fenerbahce (Loan)
Alvaro Morata = Chelsea to Atletico Madrid (Loan)
Denis Suarez = Barcelona to Arsenal (Loan)
Georges-Kevin Nkoudou = Tottenham Hotspur to AS Monaco (Loan)
Aboubakar Kamara = Fulham to Yeni Malatyaspor (Loan)
Reece Oxford = West Ham United to Augsburg (Loan)
Wilfried Bony = Swansea to Al-Arabi (Loan)
Ben Wilmot = Watford to Udinese (Loan)
Adrien Silva = Leicester City to AS Monaco (Loan)
Shinji Kagawa = Borussia Dortmund to Besiktas (Loan)
Antonio Barreca = AS Monaco to Newcastle United (Loan)
Youri Tielemans = AS Monaco to Leicester City (Loan)
Havard Nordtveit = Hoffenheim to Fulham (Loan)
Michy Batshuayi = Chelsea to Crystal Palace (Loan)

* = Move will be finalised in the summer transfer window

Updated to January 31 - Transfer window closed

[K]

Has the Premier League Transfer Bubble Burst?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/sports/premier-league-transfer-window.html

"The January transfer window has come and gone, barely noticed. There has been no orgy of excess, no frantic scramble to spend as much money as possible, no broken transfer-spending records, no helicopter dashes, no late-night drama.

For once — for the first time, perhaps — English soccer has been a model of restraint and of prudence. For once, it has looked not at price, but at worth. As one executive at a Premier League team told The Times of London, “People are asking crazy money for average players.”
...

In England, managers and technical directors and chief executives whisper darkly of an “English tax,” claiming that their counterparts on Continental Europe routinely quote them higher prices than they would a team from Germany, Italy or Spain.
...

According to one executive at a Bundesliga team, selling to a Premier League club is a much more straightforward business than offloading a player to Italy or Spain: The money is invariably paid upfront, one lump sum deposited into your account upon completion of the deal, rather than an installment plan contingent on a host of clauses. It is also rather more palatable to fans: Clubs in Germany, he said, have broadly welcomed English interest in their best players simply because the alternative is seeing them move, with dread predictability, to Bayern Munich.
...

That is not, however, the limit of its appeal. The evidence is anecdotal but nonetheless compelling: Europe’s clubs see the Premier League as a cash cow, and its member clubs as rather deeper of pocket than they are of thought.
...

If certain clubs have chosen not to spend — Liverpool and Manchester City for fear of disrupting the delicate harmony they have established, Manchester United because a permanent manager and a technical director must be appointed first — others have been unable to do so.

In the case of Tottenham, with a new stadium to consider, and Chelsea, subject to a FIFA investigation over rule breaches related to young players, those circumstances are bespoke; for others, the issue is much broader. The short-term cost-control measures established by the league’s clubs effectively link increases in a team’s wage bill to growth of its commercial revenue; that Arsenal, for example, has not increased the latter means it is not in a position to throw money at the former.
...

England for many years stood as a last, defiant bulwark against the idea that recruitment should be overseen not by a club’s manager, but by a technical — or sporting — director. ...

That is no longer the case. Of the elite, only Manchester United does not have a technical director, and it is in the process of finding one. Away from Old Trafford, most teams have moved to bring in an individual or a team of people to sift through data, to compile scouting reports, and to assist — to choose a euphemism — the manager with recruitment. The days of a coach being allowed to bring in players on a whim are over.
...

A dull January is not a cause for concern. It is not a sign of a lack of ambition, but the hallmark of a league that is getting that little bit smarter, that at last is thinking with its head, rather than its pocket."

[K]

So much for grief: Nantes shows true colours with demand for Sala fee (Telegraph, London)

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/so-much-for-grief-nantes-shows-true-colours-with-demand-for-sala-fee-20190208-p50wgg.html

"One senses, though, that the soccer morality tale lurking behind this terrible incident is only just beginning.

Already there is plenty to suggest that Sala’s transfer from Nantes to Cardiff was not all that it seemed.
...

Despite the initial impressions that his £15 million ($27 million) move was a deftly handled piece of business on both sides, it has since emerged that four separate middlemen were competing over a share of the spoils.

Now, before Sala’s family have even had chance to think about the funeral, the story takes another lurch towards the game’s ice-cold heart, with Nantes sending Cardiff an invoice for the first of three payments to cover his transfer fee.
...

Frankly, it is an affront to Sala’s bereft mother, father, brother and sister for any club to talk of him as family. The itinerant pattern of his career indicates that he was, in the final analysis, just a commodity to be traded. At Bordeaux, he was loaned out successively to Orleans, Niort and Caen.

His first extended stay in the French top flight, with Nantes, also came to an abrupt end as soon as the price was right. Once a club such as Cardiff are ready to spend £15 million on a player with a fairly limited track record, the only real winners are the intermediaries. Sala himself becomes just another pawn on the chessboard.

‘‘Chattel’’ is another word that has been used, such is Nantes’ conspicuous greed. This is perhaps a little extreme: Sala stood to earn £55,000 ($100,000) a week at Cardiff, which would be few people’s idea of indentured servitude.

What is undeniable is that the terms of reference have moved on with indecent haste. Before there has been even a cursory discussion about recompense for Sala’s family, Nantes are demanding to know where their piece of the pie is.

Would that they had devoted such attention to establishing the whereabouts of his plane beneath the waves, instead of leaving funding for the search efforts to the goodwill of players and fans."

[Jezza]

Very sad outcome, but glad his body was found for the sake of his family having closure.

Just hope they can locate the pilot who is still missing.

[K]

'His body was recovered from the wreckage last week, while pilot David Ibbotson has yet to be found.
...

"If we are contractually obliged to pay them then of course we will. We are an honourable club," Dalman told the BBC.

"But if we are not - and there are some anomalies in that - then surely you would expect me as the chairman and guardian of this club's interests to look into that and hold our position. That is what we are doing.

"We are still in the process of gathering information and that process will be ongoing. And when we reach a level where we have enough information, I am sure we will sit down with Nantes and move forward." '

(Reuters)

[K]

Cardiff may sue Nantes for negligence over Sala (Telegraph, London)

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/cardiff-may-sue-nantes-for-negligence-over-sala-20190217-p50yby.html

"Cardiff have frozen all payments while they wait for answers about how their record signing died and whether anyone could be held liable. Some of those answers could be provided this week, the Air Accidents Investigations Bureau having said it intended to publish an interim report into the January 21 crash within a month of it occurring.

Cardiff have also conducted an internal investigation that The Telegraph has been told has found no evidence pilot David Ibbotson held the licence necessary to carry passengers on a commercial basis.

If the AAIB confirms Ibbotson was not qualified for the trip, senior figures believe that would constitute negligence on the part of whoever recruited the part-time gas boiler engineer.

They also believe liability for that could be extended to cover Willie and Mark McKay - who admitted arranging Sala's flight but not selecting the plane or pilot - and, in turn, Nantes, for whom the duo had been working.

A successful negligence claim against the French club would slash the transfer fee owed to them for the player, where they have threatened legal action.

Cardiff could attempt to reduce the figure further by arguing the change of ownership of Sala was incomplete when he died as he had yet to be registered to play in the Premier League."


Update:

Cardiff's Sala deal is invalid, claim lawyers (Telegraph, London)

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/cardiff-s-sala-deal-is-invalid-claim-lawyers-20190221-p50z9w.html

"Lawyers working on behalf of the Premier League have written to the Welsh club this week confirming that their record signing was not fully registered to play in the competition last month.
...

It is understood Sala's Cardiff contract was deemed non-compliant with Premier League rules and was returned to them for him to sign an amended one.

Neither the club nor the league would comment last night on the nature of the discrepancies, though it is understood that such issues are not uncommon.

Cardiff plan to use Sala's Premier League registration status to argue he was not their player when he died a month ago."