Time has entered August, and as the public opinion about Mo Yang's wedding has gradually subsided, the signings and warm-up matches of the major clubs in the five major leagues have returned to the attention of the media and fans.
However, compared to previous years, this summer's transfer window was not very explosive. Only two transfer fees were over 100 million, and they were exposed by the media early, which is a bit cliché.
One is Cristiano Ronaldo's 117 million transfer to Juventus, and the other is France's rising superstar Kylian Mbappe. This kid has completed his journey to fame and is now very popular in the world.
After the World Cup, Paris Saint-Germain officially activated the buyout clause in Mbappe's contract and spent 180 million euros to officially sign the French supernova, making Mbappe the top bidder in this summer transfer window.
But it’s not a big hit, but it’s a big laugh.
Because this year's summer window transfers in the five major leagues can be said to be historic, Serie A and the Premier League have both chosen to close the window early. Serie A has moved forward two weeks, while the Premier League has moved forward a full day, nearly a month.
At the beginning of this year, the Premier League suddenly kicked out the proposal to close the transfer window on August 10.
The purpose was to protect the interests of small and medium-sized clubs. At that time, this proposal was supported by most clubs in the Premier League. Twenty teams voted, and only the four giants, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea, opposed it.
But in the end, the proposal was passed smoothly, because at that time Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1 all publicly supported the Premier League's approach and stated that they would advance and retreat together with the Premier League to follow suit.
As a result, the Premier League and Serie A were turned into tops and became the laughing stock of world football, and they were regarded as big idiots by fans from the other three major leagues.
Because after Serie A and the Premier League announced the closure of the transfer window, the three major leagues, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and La Liga, no longer mentioned this issue.
Especially the Bundesliga. The 17 Bundesliga teams that previously agreed and clamored to close the German window early have tacitly agreed not to mention this matter again.
Other leagues are exactly the same, they are all pretending to have amnesia!
The Premier League and Serie A fans were collectively dumbfounded by this outrageous move from the three major leagues, and suddenly realized that they seemed to have been fooled!
What about advancing and retreating together as promised?
Some Premier League fans even went to the official websites of the three major leagues to curse Bitchi!
This year is the year of the World Cup, so the transfer window operations of major leagues are extremely slow. Even if the opposing club is willing to talk to you, players rarely negotiate with the club during this time period in order to focus on the World Cup.
This leads to the fact that after the World Cup, the major Premier League clubs only have more than 20 days to operate.
But negotiation itself is a long process, and this time is simply not enough.
Therefore, this has resulted in the prices of many hasty signings in the Premier League this year being somewhat inflated.
Among them, the biggest enemy is Chelsea, who did not have enough time in negotiations with Athletic Bilbao.
This forced Chelsea to directly activate Kepa's release clause and take away the Spanish goalkeeper for a sky-high price of 80 million euros.
But even if the Premier League closes its window one day early, it still burns the most money among the five major leagues, reaching 1.45 billion euros.
In addition to the goalkeeper Kepa, Chelsea also bought the midfielder Noginho from Naples for 510 euros, and then sold Courtois to Real Madrid.
Secondly, there are the Manchester City duo who have always been very powerful.
However, their signings this year were also affected by the early closing of the transfer window. In order not to be taken advantage of, the signings were also hastily ended.
For Manchester City, the biggest signing was spent on Leeds United.
Guardiola personally made the decision to buy Leeds United forward Bai Lele for 69 million pounds.
This transfer caused little disturbance in the Premier League, because Bai Lele has already shown people in the World Cup that his impact and personal ability are no less than Mbappe.
Manchester City fans are very satisfied with this signing. Compared with 69 million and Mbappe's 180 million, they feel that they have made a lot of money.
The Chinese fans are even more satisfied. Another one of their own players has entered a wealthy club, which means that Bai Lele's ability has been recognized by Europe's top wealthy clubs.
Manchester United's moves this year were modest at the beginning. The biggest signing was midfielder Fred, who was bought from Shakhtar Donetsk for 54 million.
However, under Mourinho's strong protest, Manchester United's top brass increased their investment in the transfer market.
Mourinho publicly told the media that what he wanted was a mature central defender. The club signed Fred and the young defender Dalot and goalkeeper Lorant bought for 19 million euros cannot make up for Manchester United and Manchester City.
And the huge gap with Liverpool.
With only two weeks left in the transfer window, Mourinho recommended Mina and Boateng to Manchester United's top brass, but Manchester United's top brass rejected Mourinho because of the health conditions of these two players.
However, under Mourinho's strong request, Manchester United's senior management finally compromised, and a signing was born that broke the record for the highest transfer fee for a defender in world football.
After two weeks of negotiations, Manchester United once again intercepted Leicester City. Leeds United's center back Maguire, who was selected in the Premier League's best team for the 17-18 season, joined the Red Devils Manchester United for 78 million pounds. The Red Devils' signing
Let’s stop here.
And Tottenham, which finished fourth last season and successfully secured a ticket to the Champions League, has continued to become a breath of fresh air among the BIG6 of the Premier League.
They have 0 income and 0 expenses in this summer window!
Levy, chairman of Tottenham Hotspur Club, was also ridiculed by the English media as the stingiest club chairman in the history of the Premier League, bar none!
But I have to admit that even with zero investment, Tottenham still occupy the top six every year, which is hard to believe.
As for Liverpool, their actions in the transfer market can be summed up by the phrase "loud thunder but light rain".
In early June, shortly after the summer transfer window opened, the Dutch media "International Football" broke the news that Liverpool and Ajax were discussing the transfer of De Jong.
But soon De Jong publicly stated that he would not go to Liverpool, which aroused speculation from the media, saying that he was afraid that he would not be able to compete with Mo Yang.
De Jong was so angry that he publicly declared on INS that he was not afraid of competition, but the club he longed for was Barcelona.
Soon "International Football" broke the news that Liverpool would turn its target to another Ajax defense super talent, De Ligt.
But because the black shop Ajax directly offered a sky-high price of 80 million euros, Liverpool was immediately scared away.
Although Liverpool's revenue this season is terrible, they are determined not to take advantage of them. The risk of buying a 1999 teenager for 80 million euros is too high.
In this matter, Klopp and Edwards fully learned the lessons from the introduction of Klavan.
Immediately afterwards, Klopp made a U-turn and spent 40 million pounds to buy Oxlade-Chamberlain from Arsenal to make up for the departure of Reva and Emre Can, who basically had no ball to play in Liverpool this season.
After this signing, Liverpool made no further moves in the transfer market.
The media thought Liverpool's signings for this season were over.
Unexpectedly, on August 9, the day before the transfer window closed, Liverpool suddenly announced that Buffon, who had just left Juventus on a free transfer, would join Liverpool.
This signing shocked the English media. You must know that this is a championship goalkeeper. At his peak, he was worth 150 million euros.
Although Buffon is now 40 years old, he still maintains an excellent level and is the soul of Juventus' defense.
The arrival of Buffon will definitely make Liverpool's defense more stable.
As for what Buffon said at the press conference that he likes Liverpool, England, etc., just listen to it.
Because everyone knows that Buffon suddenly rejected Paris Saint-Germain's annual salary of 10 million euros, and came to Liverpool to get an annual salary of 1 million euros just for the Champions League championship. (To be continued)