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Premier League

And if you think it was just the Spaniards who have gone mad, take a look at the English clubs who want in too!

by Abhay Puri

Over on the island that once colonized the world, Premiership managers have come to a collective agreement that since they are now almost all owned by American or Arabs or consortiums, they will pay inflated sums for bad players, demand bigger and bigger transfer budgets and make up funnier and funnier rumours.

Liverpool are of course, at the forefront of this ridiculous movement. Despite the fact that they are massively in debt, Rafa Benitez has somehow managed to find £19 million to buy Glen Johnson.

No, this is not a joke. Yes, really, Glen Johnson, who Chelsea sold to Portsmouth for £4m last year because they decided he was terrible, then suddenly changed their minds after watching a couple of England games against Kazakhstan and Andorra, and tried to buy back this month for £15m. Rafa Benitez, falling for Chelsea’s joke and also hoping to get Steven Gerrard a teammate who actually does speak English, somehow decided that Johnson was worth 19 mill, and swooped in.  Good thinking, Rafa. Another master strike from you.

Benitez clearly thinks that how well you do in a football game depends on how many full-backs you have on the bench. At least he is being creative this season - instead of buying three mediocre Spanish or South American full backs, he has settled for one mediocre English one!

Over in London, Chelsea hired Carlo Ancelotti, who has not won a Serie A title with Milan for the past four years. In an attempt to satiate his ego, Roman Abramovich has adopted a new transfer policy of reading tabloids to find out who Barcelona, Real Madrid and Man United want to sign and then releasing a statement saying Chelsea are “interested in” (read: williing to pay more to) every single one of those players. Very dignified indeed. .

Ancelotti's strategy to win titles seems quite straightforward - to collect central midfielders the way kids collect stamps or trading cards. Despite already owning Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Jon Obi Mikel, and Deco, they are reportedly also trying to sign Italian pensioners Andre Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso. Perceivably, since the Premier League already has a French team (Arsenal) and a Spanish team (Liverpool), Chelsea want to be the Italian team in this fantastic league of nations.

According to the British press, Chelsea also want to buy Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero, Yuri Zhirkov, David Villa, Franck Ribery, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alexandre Pato, Rafael van der Vaart, Samuel Eto'o, a new pair of shoes, one of those big London telephone booths, some new clothes for that homeless guy who lives right by Stamford Bridge, a waterproof umbrella and some stockings.

Meanwhile, Manchester United fans, in their deranged depression, have quickly concluded that Cristiano Ronaldo was vain, selfish, a narcissist, and generally quite rubbish, to be avoided like swine flu. You may have been persuaded into thinking otherwise by his 66 goals and many personal accolades, but really, listen to the Old Trafford faithful. Reading the fickle supporters’ discussion boards, it seems that the only surprise was that he went for £80 million – Sir Alex should have sent him over to Madrid a long time ago for some chewing gum and Gabriel Heinze back.

But despite all the clamouring and denial from United fans, the fact is that the Premier League has lost its best player, and United have lost the man who won them numerous Premierships and the 2008 Champions League. With an increasing likelihood that the bulldog-resembling Carlos Tevez will also leave, United will need to act fast in the transfer window.

Normally, Sir Alex is pretty good at coming back from difficult situations, but this time he too seems to have gotten caught in the tabloid trap. Apparently United are about to pay £18m to buy Antonio Valencia, the greatly talented winger who has a grand total of three Premiership goals and plays for Wigan. Sounds like a great plan.

Really, Fergie? Antonio Valencia? I’m sure he’s a decent winger, but for £18m? That’s 6 million more than City paid for Gareth Barry, who has established himself as a good central midfielder and had many seasons in the Premier League. And here I was, thinking City were the side from Manchester who got fooled into paying larger prices for worse players.

On top of that, management at United have put out a daft new transfer policy which means they will not spend more than a certain sum on players over 26. This automatically rules out almost every star who they have been linked with so far, other than, of course, Ronaldo replacement Valencia (of the magnificent three-goal tally).

Over at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger is the only manager who is sticking to his usual tactics, planning to sign tall, dark, not-so-handsome players who none of us have heard of, and then struggle to hold on to them when they become famous a couple of years later. He has also been spotted walking around the Emirates muttering French phrases angrily under his breath, and calling Fabregas, van Persie and Adebayor alternately every few hours, begging and threatening them not to leave.

However, if Wenger does manage to keep his squad together and make some additions at the back without getting carried away in the manner that all the other big clubs seem to be, his side may well be in a strong position next season. After all, Arshavin was extremely impressive whenever he played for Arsenal, and if Fabregas stays and Nasri and Rosicky are fit as well, they already have one of the Premiership’s strongest midfields.

Although a lot of this implausible brokering is very much media-exaggerated, the prices floating around Europe at the moment seem far too incredulous – with 20 million pounds, a sum that would just a couple of years ago have bought you almost any midfielder or forward in the world, being spent on players like Glen Johnson and Antonio Valencia, that too during a period of so-called recession, something looks very wrong.

Maybe the managers know best, but it looks to me as though they need to start concentrating on intelligent purchases rather than big money blowouts. No matter what happens, all this transfer window madness can only lead to more excitement next season.

So see you in two months time, when the stadiums start filling up again.