Unsellable Manchester United outcast and £75m Liverpool pair among players stuck until January

ScoreLive September 10, 2024 0

There are some transfer windows still open across the world but a £75m-rated Liverpool pair are among the Premier League players stuck for a few months.

10) Odysseas Vlachodimos (Newcastle)
It is highly recommended that at least once a day, you stop and consider just how hilariously brazen it was for Newcastle to sign Nottingham Forest’s third-choice keeper at the time they did for a fee reported to be as high as £20m.

The only matchday squad Vlachodimos has made since that transfer was for Greece. He kept a clean sheet against Finland, thus matching the tally of shut-outs he managed in his entire debut season for Forest, which obviously persuaded Newcastle to make him the most expensive keeper in their history.

9) Kamaldeen Sulemana (Southampton)
It is equally crucial to contemplate Southampton’s January 2023 transfer window roughly once every week. After spending the previous summer giving Manchester City as much money as possible for whatever wholly inexperienced Academy graduates the champions could spare, the panicking Saints backed Nathan Jones to the hilt in the winter.

Their £60m investment was beaten only by Chelsea, with a similarly disastrous hit-rate of Mislav Orsic (£8m for six minutes and a substantial loss when he was sold five months later), Paul Onuachu (£18m for no goals in 411 minutes before having his shirt number taken away) and Sulemana (a club-record £22m for two goals, both in a ridiculous final-day draw with Liverpool long after relegation had been confirmed).

Carlos Alcaraz (not that one) was at least decent for a bit before joining Juventus on loan and then Flamengo permanently; Sulemana tried to use such escape routes this summer but Ajax filed the paperwork late and locked the forward in purgatory for the rest of 2024.

8) Sergio Reguilon (Spurs)

“They don’t have to get integrated back into the squad. It’s pretty clear where they sit in terms of where we are as a squad and where we are as a team, but, you know, I’ve never been one to force people out. They’ve got decisions about their own careers and what they want to do, and if they’re still here, they’re still here. We’ll work around that scenario, but it certainly won’t affect the way we work in the first team.”

Ange Postecoglou’s message was clear enough for Giovani Lo Celso, whose ears were still ringing when he reacquainted himself with the surroundings at Real Betis after five years on the books at north London. But it seems as though Reguilon might want to call his manager’s bluff.

It would be ill-advised; there is no place for the left-back in the Spurs picture. His last appearance for the club came under Antonio Conte and loans with Manchester United and Brentford have done nothing to alter Postecoglou’s opinion. The door to Turkey and a reunion with Jose Mourinho and his expensive hams remains open.

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7) Isaac Hayden (Newcastle)
If you think that’s bad, spare a thought for Hayden. When he last played in a Newcastle victory in any competition, it was for Steve Bruce against Ralph Hasenhuttl, with Karl Darlow behind him, Javier Manquillo to the left and captain Jonjo Shelvey straight ahead. Andy Carroll was on the bench and Jeff Hendrick was sent off.

Newcastle have moved on without Hayden but the six-year deal offered in September 2020 suggests they somehow did not envisage such a scenario. The Magpies have understandably struggled to shift him and have very possibly even just given up.

Jamal Lewis was loaned out to Sao Paulo, for Christ’s sake. Hayden ought to be furious with his agent.

6) Joe Gomez (Liverpool)
Perhaps Liverpool stitched themselves up when it came to Gomez this summer. They showed their hand early and unwittingly, their £45m valuation of Gomez becoming public knowledge as the details of a failed move for Anthony Gordon were laid bare.

Arne Slot’s aloof, matter-of-fact approach to public speaking never provided Gomez with the vote of confidence he might have sought thereafter, while Aston Villa and Chelsea followed up on that Newcastle interest without ever tabling a formal offer for a defender whose versatility might genuinely be a bigger curse than his injury history.

The climate might change when the fixture list introduces more obstacles for Liverpool but zero Premier League minutes across the first three games only strengthens the idea that Gomez’s face and profile does not quite fit.

5) Antony (Manchester United)
For Antony more than possibly any other current Premier League player, a loan move to Turkey beckons. His entire energy screams Besiktas. He has a preposterously strong Istanbul Basaksehir aura. Cut him and he bleeds Trabzonspor.

It feels right in a way his time in England never will. If there is an £82m forward in there – and significant doubts remain on that front despite Erik ten Hag’s substantial body of work as an industry-leading director of football – then it will not be discovered amid the Barclays cut and thrust.

Even his most avid supporter seems to have accepted that, considering a single spare Manchester United minute has been found and allocated to the Brazilian this season. Despite publicly stating he would stay and fight for his place, Antony is said to want to leave. That will only happen when Manchester United concede that substantial losses will have to be cut.

4) Caoimhin Kelleher (Liverpool)
Filling in for Alisson across numerous cup runs and the Brazilian’s infrequent spells out through injury is all well and good, but Kelleher must have considered that to be work experience for an eventual promotion to the full-time post at Liverpool.

The signing of Giorgi Mamardashvili has changed the equation somewhat at Anfield.

“I made it clear in the last few years, I want to go be a No. 1 and play week in, week out,” Kelleher told Irish media during this international break. “The club made the decision to get another goalkeeper. From the outside looking in, it looks like they have made a decision to go in another direction.”

It is hard to argue. And with otherwise free-spending clubs still reluctant in big 2024 to sanction expensive moves for goalkeepers – Nottingham Forest bidding £7m plus Matt Turner for a £30m-rated player is genuinely hilarious – Kelleher will have to fill himself up on Carabao for yet another season.

3) Emmanuel Dennis (Nottingham Forest)
In all fairness, Forest cannot say they weren’t warned; Dennis was the 13th new signing through the door in their first season back in the Premier League so an element of misfortune in his time at the City Ground was to be expected.

But none of his struggles have really been down to a lack of luck. Dennis simply joined at the wrong time, almost immediately finding himself lost in the infernal shuffle and starting just nine games in his debut season after moving from Watford for as much as £20m.

The Nigerian has not featured for his parent club since May 2023, spending last campaign on loan in Turkey and then back with Watford. Dennis has made less impact in the top flight for Forest than Mark Clattenburg.

2) Rob Holding (Crystal Palace)
“We will talk together – he knows the reason. But it is something that stays between Rob and me. Nothing public.” That was the extent to which Oliver Glasner deemed it necessary to discuss the current Holding pattern of a player who has fallen through the centre-half cracks at Selhurst Park.

Holding has played a single game since making the £3m move to Selhurst Park: a 3-0 League Cup third-round defeat. After being locked in the pecking order behind Marc Guehi, Joachim Andersen and Chris Richards, then even Joel Ward, Nathaniel Clyne and Jefferson Lerma, the 28-year-old has still had to shuffle back this summer despite the sale of Andersen as Chadi Riad, Maxence Lacroix and Trevoh Chalobah have arrived.

This is what happens when you believe Roy Hodgson when he promises you gametime.

1) Ben Chilwell (Chelsea)
The focus was inevitably placed on the plight of Raheem Sterling but that detracted somewhat from just how many of their own players Chelsea suddenly decided they could no longer be arsed with employing this summer. They made the most of any club through sales and loaned out a literal dozen more to ensure Enzo Maresca had the definitely-not-a-mess squad size he always craved when doing his coaching badges.

Most found a way out – Sterling to Arsenal, Kepa to Bournemouth, Chalobah to Crystal Palace, everyone else to Strasbourg – but Chilwell never encountered a market for either his fee or his wages. Chelsea would probably want at least their money back on a £45m signing from 2020, while Chilwell might justifiably point to the £200,000 he is contractually obliged to receive per week in resisting any attempts to shift him elsewhere. Turkish clubs have been offered the England international and former European champion but even they cannot do with the hassle.

And onward Chelsea go, perfectly embodying the We’re All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This meme while trying to put out a fire Chelsea have started.