It seems Roman Abramovich is finally getting the hang of this transfer malarkey. Just 3 days into the transfer window, and after collecting £12m for the highly average Daniel Sturridge, the signing of Demba Ba from Newcastle for £7m looks all but done.
Back in October, it seemed Roman would be pulling out £50m to sign Falcao, but I for one am glad he hasn’t. Yesterday’s loss to QPR confirmed my suspicions that we was simply not ready for a title challenge this year.
The signing of Demba Ba is a clever one. Much speculation surrounded his release clause, but nobody acted. With the Senegalese international pretty much a carbon-copy of Drogba, albeit obviously not as much of a world-beater, the signing just made sense to me, and for such a steal at £7m, we are lucky that nobody took him in August.
Still, with 13 goals in 20 games so far this campaign, its plain to see he is the real deal, despite having a barren patch when Papiss Cisse joined last season, I say barren patch, it’s not one as we know it, he still scored 16 goals last season, 10 more than our £50m recruit from Liverpool.
36 goals in 71 Premier League matches, that tells me he is ready to step into the shoes of our most recent club legend, and without the price tag of a Falcao or a Torres, there is not as much pressure on him as there would be should we have plumped to go for the Athletico Madrid superstar.
So, £5m up, and with a better striker on the books, is this going to be a new era of sensible spending for Roman and the Russians? We should probably expect it with the Financial Fair Play rules looming, and if these sort of player quality deals are regular, I certainly won’t be complaining.
By Brad Smith
Follow @BrummieBrad