Wednesday 7 January 2015 11:49, UK
Managers will tell you about their long-term planning. They’ll emphasise the need for time to bed in and talk of strategy. But when the pressure is on and points are at stake that can soon get forgotten amid the January frenzy, writes Adam Bate...
The soothing quick fix of the sticking-plaster signing retains its allure. For every boss insistent there’s no value in the market, there’s another who can point to that player who kick-started their campaign.
Here we take a look at five of the best impact buys since the January transfer deadline was introduced to the Premier League. In each case their goals helped lift their team up the table. And in each case the magic didn’t last.
On the face of it, it was an inauspicious start for France’s World Cup star when the St Andrew’s floodlights failed on his debut – a 4-0 home defeat to Arsenal. But Dugarry was the star of the show as far as Birmingham boss Steve Bruce was concerned. “Let's be brutally honest, he could have played in their team,” said Bruce. “Dugarry was absolutely magnificent.”
The classy forward was still waiting for his first Birmingham goal with the team precariously placed in mid-April but they finally came in a flurry of five in four games as Dugarry scored in back-to-back wins over Sunderland, Charlton, Southampton and Middlesbrough in the space of just 14 days. Blues eventually finished 13th with Dugarry the undoubted catalyst behind their survival.
Dugarry was at the back end of his career and suffering from a degenerative knee condition when he signed for Birmingham. As a result, he failed to make the same impact in an injury-hit second season, scoring just once in 15 appearances, and Birmingham declined to take up the option of an extra year. Dugarry subsequently retired from football.
Beattie had been playing in the Championship with Sheffield United, scoring 12 goals by Boxing Day, when he was picked up by Tony Pulis to help boost Stoke’s ailing debut season in the Premier League. Although Ricardo Fuller had scored half a dozen times, the Potters were struggling for goals at the time and languishing in the drop zone by the time Beattie got off the mark at Spurs.
The then 30-year-old striker netted the only goal of the game in a crucial win over Manchester City just four days later to lift Stoke away from danger and added to his tally with a brace against Portsmouth. He also brought the best out of Fuller – both men scoring in wins over Bolton, West Brom and Wigan – as Stoke ascended to the relative safety of 12th by the end of the season.
Beattie lost his spark in spectacular fashion the following season as the goals dried up almost completely. Despite a brace against West Ham, he failed to find the net in his other 23 appearances before leaving for Rangers in the summer of 2010. In fact, Beattie didn’t score another goal until netting for Accrington Stanley in November 2012.
Aston Villa broke their transfer record to bring Bent to the club in January 2011, a move that looks all the more perplexing given owner Randy Lerner’s subsequent tightening of the purse strings. Nobody can argue with Bent’s initial impact though as he scored nine goals in 16 games to help lift Villa away from danger.
Those goals included the winner against Manchester City on his debut in a game that could have left Villa in the relegation zone had they lost. Instead they suddenly looked upwardly mobile with Bent’s brace in a 2-1 win at Arsenal in May followed by a final-day win over Liverpool taking Villa to ninth in the table by the end of the campaign.
Bent continued to fire during a turgid season under Alex McLeish before losing the captaincy and falling out of favour under Paul Lambert. Loan spells with Fulham and Brighton were unremarkable and Bent is now on a temporary deal with Championship club Derby County as Villa appear content to wait for his lucrative deal to expire.
Newcastle had to wait until Cisse finished Africa Cup of Nations duties with Senegal before seeing precisely what their money had bought them in January 2012, but the man from Freiburg proved worth the wait. In an astonishing burst of scoring, Cisse scored 13 goals in his first 12 games for Newcastle to help provide added impetus to what was already an encouraging campaign.
Three consecutive braces did much to see off West Brom, Liverpool and Swansea before Cisse topped all that with two stunning goals in a 2-0 win at Chelsea that all but sealed a fifth-place finish and European football at Newcastle once again.
Cisse has struggled to repeat the initial heroics and scored only 10 goals in 60 Premier League appearances over the course of the next two seasons as knee problems limited his influence. However, the striker has enjoyed a recent renaissance – scoring eight Premier League goals so far this season – emphasising his tendency to run hot and cold.
January 2012 was a month for impact buys as Everton also found a striker who hit the ground running. David Weir had recommended Rangers forward Nikica Jelavic to manager David Moyes and the Croatian took no time to adapt to Premier League life, scoring 11 goals in all competitions for the Toffees that season, including nine in 13 league games.
Jelavic was the poacher that Everton had been lacking and matched Cisse’s feat of hitting two goals in three consecutive Premier League matches as well as playing a part in their run to the FA Cup semi-final. His goals fired Everton up the league as they lost just two matches that he started in all competitions that season.
That proved to be as good as it got for Jelavic in an Everton shirt. Despite featuring in all but one of the club’s Premier League games the following season, he scored just seven times in 2012-13 and after failing to find the net in nine appearances the year after, he was sold to Hull City.
The impact made by these strikers shows that a January signing can help transform a team’s fortunes, but in each case their subsequent struggles highlights the pitfalls of splashing the cash in the winter window. Interestingly, Luis Suarez scored only four goals in 13 appearances for Liverpool following his January 2011 arrival from Ajax and so was outscored by all five of the players profiled above. Sometimes it takes time for a player’s true impact to become clear.
