I haven't been around a while, so excuse me if this has been discussed elsewhere. I thought it'd be a good idea to take an overall look at the transfers this window involving decent to great players, and see what the overall picture is for French club football, given that every year mass complaints go on about the pillaging of french football... Please bear in mind that i rate these as lossess/gains given the overall level of the league 1, not necessarily base on my personal opinion of the player. (I've purposely not included those situations involving a loan, as these are by definition, temporary.) Out Kahlenburg (Auxerre - Wolfsburg) ? Obertan (Bordeaux - ManU) ? Benzema (Lyon - Real) MASSIVE LOSS Juninho (Lyon - Doha) LOSS Keita (Lyon- Galatasaray) LOSS Cana (OM- Sunderland) LOSS D. Cisse (OM - Panathanaikos) LOSS Ziana (OM - Wolfsburg) ? Zubar (OM - Wolves) (NO BIG DEAL) Givet (OM-Blackburn) (NO BIG DEAL) Fortuné (Nancy - Celtic) ? Ilunga (Toulouse-West Ham) ? In Plasil (Osasuna - Bordeaux) (?) Ljuboja (Stuttgart - Grenoble) (WHY?) A. Cissokho (Porto - Lyon) (GAIN) Lisandro Lopez (Porto - Lyon) (HUGE GAIN) E. Cisse (Besiktas - OM) ? Lucho Gonzalez (Porto -OM) (HUGE GAIN) Heinze (Real - OM) (GAIN) Coupet (Altetico -PSG) (GAIN) Gelson Fenandes (Man City - StE) ? Stay These cover those players who stayed within league 1 despite serious interest from abroad. I can't think of many in this category except Gourcuff which is a big positive. Chamakh may be one if he remains at Bordeaux. Feel free to add more/disagree:
These are no big deals. Lyon were dying to get rid of Keita. Cisse is a bad apple and Cana is good but overrated as evident by the big clubs not snatching him up. 2 really good underrated transfers in my opinion are Paulo Machado from Porto to Toulouse and Ismaël Bangoura from Dynamo Kiev to Rennes. The only thing that concerns me are big English clubs stealing our young (16,17,18,19 yr old) players. Its pathetic when ManU has to snatch 16 yr olds from teams like Le Harve. Gotta try to put a stop to that.
This is one of the most active and productive mercatos I've seen in a long time. Wasn't it like 2 winters ago when only 1 team made a move?? This a plus, everyone seems to want to get better and are opening their pocketbooks for it.