The Tartan

By: Steve Makin

On Monday, Feb. 3, European domestic soccer leagues brought their winter transfer windows to a close. With most of Europe’s top-five leagues still up for grabs, and the Champions League looking increasingly volatile going into the knockout stages, quite a bit was on the line over the last month. 

It shaped up to be a major moment for loan moves, with most big teams finding themselves strapped for cash as UEFA made a show of cracking down on financial fair play violations. As a result, fans of active teams this window have been served low-risk, high-reward scenarios, the scale of which has rarely been seen. However, this volatility lent itself more towards creating losers than winners. To that end, who won, who lost, and who is more of a toss-up going into the end of the season?

Winners: This window proved crucial for the Italian Serie A, with three teams especially winning out. 

In Turin, Juventus signed Randal Kolo Muani on loan from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). Kolo Muani — who made a name for himself at Eintracht Frankfurt in 2023 before signing for Paris for €95 million — has been decidedly tame in France, converting only six goals in 26 league games played last season. However, his pacey style of play should be perfectly suited to the Serie A game. Alongside Dusan Vlahović, he no longer needs to play the part of a goalscorer, anyway. This did not stop him, though, from netting a hat trick in his first game for the Old Lady, and a brace in game two. Juventus’ loan acquisition of the young defender Renato Veiga from Chelsea was also a decidedly sneaky piece of business.

Meanwhile, Napoli, currently leading Serie A, sold one of their talismans from their iconic 2022–2023 Scudetto triumph in Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (€70 million to PSG). This was a calculated risk, as the club already had enough attacking depth to replace him. Napoli are unbeaten since his sale, and have also managed to poach young talent Luis Hasa from Lecce. However, their manager has since expressed his discontent with the failure to sign Alejandro Garnacho, among others, as additional cover — perhaps a larger issue in leagues with more injury crises, but not Italy. 

In the north, AC Milan managed to sell off or loan out much of their deadweight, and also remedied glaring voids in their striker and fullback areas (Santiago Giménez and João Félix in attack, Kyle Walker at right-back). Giménez assisted Félix for a goal in their mutual debut, and Giménez grabbed a beautiful goal for himself in the next game against Empoli. The two players look already to have taken copious amounts of pressure off of Milan’s star-studded wing duo, Leão and Pulisic. 

Finally, some teams won out without really doing anything at all. Barcelona, for one, managed to register their summer signings — meaning Dani Olmo, who has become a crucial player in Hansi Flick’s attack-minded system, will not leave on a free transfer. Red Bull Leipzig also managed to do some clever business. In the short term, purchasing Xavi Simons from PSG for €50 million seems to have been decidedly cut-rate, as he looks set to leave Leipzig for a far larger sum sooner or later. In a similar vein, managing to keep Benjamin Šeško despite interest from Arsenal will allow the club to maintain some modicum of their weakened attack from last season, as they hope to hang onto the Bundesliga top four. 

Losers: The biggest losers of this transfer window were almost assuredly Borussia Dortmund. The struggling Bavarian giants failed to secure any big names (or even big youth names, as they are generally accustomed to attracting) as they still sit outside of the Bundesliga top 10. They also sold off Donyell Malen, a key bench player at minimum, to Aston Villa for a small fee. This move came as close as a deal can get to objectively bad business, considering that the money didn’t go anywhere. 

Similarly, North London outfit Arsenal failed to sign a striker, a widely-publicized deficiency in an otherwise world-class squad. The club’s late bid for Ollie Watkins was rejected by Aston Villa, but apart from that, Mikel Arteta appeared content to finish the season as is. This could hint at his Champions League tactics going forward, with many fans hopeful for expensive signings in the summer. 

Across the city, in West London, Chelsea had a fairly poor window as well. The purchase of Mathis Amougou, while cheap (€15 million), feels like a panic buy. He will likely warm the bench once starters return from injury. This same notion of panic was compounded by the recall of fellow center back Trevoh Chalobah from his loan at Crystal Palace, where he never really shined, despite being a starter. With so much money spent in recent years across a long list of players, there was never any hope for a serious winter window this season from the Blues. They have since been eliminated from the FA Cup by a Brighton side in poor form. 

Elsewhere in England, Tottenham found themselves rejected for permanent moves by Marc Guéhi (center back, Crystal Palace), Axel Disasi (center back, Chelsea), and Mathys Tel (striker, Bayern Munich) even after agreeing on prices with the given clubs. It is worth noting that all three players wanted moves, just not to Spurs. Tel did, eventually, agree to a loan deal, and Spurs did end up signing their third-choice center back, Kevin Danso, for €25 million. If both players work out in the Premier League — and it’s a big “if” considering past transfers like Timo Werner or Davinson Sánchez in those respective positions — the North London team will be seriously good once their pervasive injury crisis subsides. Regardless, rejection en masse made for extremely bad press, and Tel’s many short-term injuries during his time in Germany warrant concern for inevitable absences. 

In Spain, Real Madrid was riddled with rumors of fullback arrivals in the form of Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold and/or Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies. Although perhaps unnecessary from the outset, neither of these transfers materialized. 

Lastly, to take a player instead of an entire club, Jhon Durán accepted a big-money move to Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr. The prolific Colombian prodigy will rake in a salary increase of roughly 1,000 percent (yes, that is the genuine figure) and share the pitch with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Sadio Mané. However, this move was widely criticized, with the player recently asserting that the move was a fulfillment of a childhood dream — an obvious fabrication given the circumstances of both player and club over the last two decades. Also, given Durán’s heroics in the UEFA Champions League at the age of 22 for an underdog team, it was tough for many fans to see the move as anything other than a substantial downgrade at a crucial point in his career; Durán has already scored a brace in his first appearance for the Riyadh outlet. A move to one of the Premier League’s colloquial “Big Six” teams had once been well on the cards, but is now completely out the window.

Toss-ups: Again, what with the spastic nature of loans and the current volatile league standings across Europe, there were a great many teams whose windows felt either especially contentious or even too close to call. 

Paris Saint-Germain, for one, has been mentioned ad nauseam in this article already. Swapping one expensive winger in Kolo Muani for another in Kvaratskhelia, they were certainly banking on a lot of variables, the foremost being that Juventus will eventually exercise the former’s buy option included in the loan deal. Should Kolo Muani return to Paris, Kvaratskhelia will suddenly weigh much heavier on the balance sheets. PSG will also be hoping that the Georgian international will return to the lethal form in front of goal that he saw in his Scudetto-winning season. However, unbeaten in both the whole of Ligue Un and their last three Champions League games, there was a lingering sense throughout the winter window of, “Why mess with a good thing?”

The Premier League was also wracked with odd transfers, especially in Manchester. Manchester City, reigning Premier League Champions, found themselves in uncharacteristically poor form in and around the start of the winter window. They signed four players — none of whom came cheap relative to status — with a fifth in the form of Claudio Echeverri finally arriving after a prior agreement with River Plate. If these signings come good — especially Omar Marmoush, whom many fans see as a spiritual successor to an aging Mohamed Salah at Liverpool — it would likely mean a brilliant City side for the next five years at the minimum. However, defender Abdukodir Khusanov has already made an error against Chelsea in his debut leading to a goal, and Marmoush has zero goals or assists in his first three games, albeit playing out-of-position from his Eintracht role. 

Across town at Old Trafford, Manchester United seemed to create the opposite problem this window, selling off perhaps too many players in what appeared to be a boardroom acceptance of their doomed Premier League campaign. The easy assumption is to call their window a definitive loss; they will probably finish the season trophyless, outside of a lucky Europa League run, and with a low-place finish in the Premier League. However, talented youth signings (Ayden Heaven from Arsenal, most notably) are rarely bad business, and many of their big-name outgoings were perceived as poor locker room influences over the last year. It is worth noting that these were loan exits — not yet full sales — but an important part of new manager Ruben Amorim’s future success is having players on the pitch who back his vision.

Finally, Aston Villa have come under scrutiny for their many high-profile loan deals. Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio have high upsides, playing very typical Unai Emery football with strength on the counterattack and sufficient flair for beating tired, double-pivot midfields late-game. However, neither player was starting for his previous club, and both have long histories of injury problems. There is also the relatively cheap acquisition of Donyell Malen, mentioned above, to account for another player who almost certainly won’t make the starting 11, at least not with any sort of consistency. Whether acquiring these players was worth losing Jhon Durán remains to be seen, but certain similar (and failed) experiments in Emiliano Buendía and Nicolò Zaniolo should warrant fans’ wariness. There is a limit to how many attackers can play simultaneously.