2010-2011 Summer Transfers: A Reflection

At the beginning of last season, Goal.com produced a list of the Top 20 transfers heading into the new 2010-2011 season. I, as many other football fans, spent the summer trying to work out who was the best signing of the summer and who would be the flops. It is difficult though given that it is virtually impossible to remember who signed who and for how much. Looking back at the list it still makes interesting reading. 

The stand out on the list for me is certainly Germany's Mesut Oezil, signed by Real Madrid from Werder Bremen for £12million. The young attacking midfielder has had an amazing season contributing a lot more than just the 10 goals and 25 assists in his 50 plus games this season. There is no doubt that Madrid's player of the season will go from strength to strength at Los Merengues. As well as Oezil, Krasic (Juventus), David Silva and Yaya Toure (Manchester City) have all been successes at their clubs. Ibrahimovic too has had a fantastic season spearheading AC Milan's resurgence to the Serie A title. The Swede contributed 21 goals along with 10 assists as he looked to make his loan move from the Nou Camp permanent ahead of the oncoming season. 

The likes of David Villa and Mascherano (Barcelona), Kjaer (Wolfsburg) and Ramires (Chelsea) have all had good seasons but will all look to built on the starts that they have made at their respective clubs. Others, the likes of Chamakh (Arsenal), Diego (Wolfsburg) and Ireland (Aston Villa and now Newscastle) however have had poor seasons that might see them moving on again this summer. Diego in particular will find it difficult to find a new club having been fined the best part of £500,000 by the German side for a number of actions of ill discipline including taking a penalty away from the designated penalty taker and proceeding to miss it and refusing to be on the bench when not chosen for the 1st XI. 

There have been other players who have had fantastic seasons after summer moves with Odemwingie (West Brom) and Hernandez (Manchester Utd) jumping to the front of that line. The former scored 15 goals in 30 appearances for the Midlands club and the latter scoring 20 goals after moving from Mexico and being such a success as to be awarded a Champions League Final starting berth ahead of Premier League top goalscorer  Berbatov. 

With us just having entered July and the official opening of the summer transfer window (which runs through until the end of August) it is too early to say who will be the big transfers of the 2011-2012 summer window. But with the likes of Cesc, Alexis Sanchez and Tevez all tipped to move and the big clubs in England, Spain and Italy likely to spend big, it'll be an interesting summer for sure.