League managers around Europe will be breathing a sigh of relief now that the transfer window has closed until the summer after what was one of the most hectic deadline days since the introduction of the window. The usual format is for some mid to lower teams to have a little panic buy but the big clubs to do little more than offload a few of their younger players out on loan having been more organized and done their dealing at the start of the window. That all went out of the window as Chelsea made a late bid for Fernando Torres setting off a sequence of scrabbling around as clubs reorganized accordingly, and players being transferred for unprecedented sums where Andy Carroll is now rated as the most valuable Englishman ever after Liverpool paid Newcastle £35million for his services from the £50million they received for Torres. Undoubtedly a lot of this counts as compensation as Newcastle were unable to find a replacement in time themselves, which poses the question why they did not have any targets lined up just in case or try to negotiate a swap or loan deal with Liverpool with e.g. David Ngog.
   The influence of Manchester City and their dealings has been used as a possible reason for the late rush as clubs fear that if they heard of Chelsea's intentions they would try to hijack the bid and offer more. The increased transfer fee can't be a worry as again Chelsea will have had to pay an extra premium for leaving it so late but the fear that he may choose Man City has meant the have kept things close to their chest. This doesn't strictly follow due to the 25 man squad limit and Man City having already bought Dzeko (for £8miilion less than Carroll) but it certainly kept agents and the media outlets reporting on all the deals happy.
   Only time will tell if they live up to such high price tags but there is a danger that they may believe they are truly worth that figure already despite not necessarily being that prominent just yet. Similarly, again at Man City they have spent a lot of money on players but just because you pay £20 odd million pond for a player does not make them a £20+ million player. Lescott, Milner and Barry are all players still on the fringes of or yet to convince for the England team and like Carroll will have to perform for their country as well as their clubs if fans are to believe they justify such prices. Complaints of extortionate prices in a recession do no good as players fetch what a club is willing to pay for them, but when a World Cup finalist like Rafael van der Vaart can have such a good season after costing Spurs £8milliion then questions will be asked of such valuable England players if their international performances don't improve.