The January transfer window is upon us, and it could provide an opportunity for some top Premier League clubs to offload players who are simply not in contention for regular game time. We take a look at the one player each of the top premier league clubs could be looking to get rid of soon.
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There are several factors that go into determining a player’s success at a club, his ability being only one of them. Though these players have not had the chance to shine for their respective Premier League clubs, this is by no means a foretelling of the winding up of their careers, although in some cases it could be.
A top Premier League club that does not feature on the list however is Manchester City, who have pretty much a settled squad with all the right pegs in all the right holes. Apart from the Citizens though, here’s a rundown of the players that might be on their way out of the Premier League bigwigs very soon.
Tottenham Hotspur
Andros Townsend
The 24-year-old English winger seemed to be going places when he broke into the Spurs first team, but a standoff with the club’s fitness coach lead him to be banished from the side by manager Mauricio Pochettino. Although the Argentine hasn’t reprimanded him publicly, it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting first team action with Tottenham anytime soon and the club will be listening to offers for their academy graduate this January.
Pochettino did however admit that the player has a bright future ahead of him and finding another club will likely not be much of a problem, with Southampton and Newcastle United believed to be interested in the player.
Arsenal
Mikel Arteta
Arsenal FC have often lacked a real leader on the pitch this season and goalkeeper Petr Cech has probably been the most authoritative of the players. But the Gunners captain is someone who doesn’t feature in the club’s starting XI very often. Captain Mikel Arteta’s latest appearance for them was against Norwich City, where he played a part in conceding two goals and then came off injured.
At 33 years old, it’s probably a safe bet that there won’t be a resurrection of his playing career in the future and Arsenal should be looking to hand the captain’s armband to a more active player and offload the defensive midfielder.
Chelsea
Radamel Falcao
The Colombian striker, once referred to El Tigre, has had a torrid time in the Premier League. After a lacklustre season at Manchester United, then Blues manager Jose Mourinho took a chance on the player and brought him to Stamford Bridge, but Mourinho is gone now and it looks like the board wishes that he took Falcao with him. It looks like the strikers best days are behind him thanks to the knee injury he suffered in January 2014.
Chelsea have approached parent club AS Monaco to take him back, but the Ligue One side are in no hurry to welcome back Falcao, who is currently sidelined for another 6 weeks with a thigh injury.
Manchester United
Victor Valdes
When the Spanish goalkeeper arrived from Barcelona in January last year, the Manchester United fans believed they had a good back up for David de Gea with Valdes having already played under Van Gaal and having loads of top flight experience. But after he allegedly refused to play with the Under-21 squad at Old Trafford, the Dutchman has completely frozen him out, refusing to even acknowledge his existence.
The 33-year-old was linked with a move to Turkish side Galatasaray in the summer, but the deal didn’t happen. Manchester United will look to sell him this January after his humiliation at the hands of Van Gaal. Valdes wasn’t assigned a jersey number for the 2015-16 season and Van Gaal now refuses to even talk about him.
Liverpool
Daniel Sturridge
The English forward played an instrumental part in Liverpool’s best Premier League run recently, linking up with Luis Suarez to take them to a second place finish in 2013-14. But he has been hampered by injuries since then, and has made only 3 Premier League starts this season. Under a taskmaster as demanding as Jurgen Klopp, this is simply not acceptable and it is believed that Liverpool are willing to listen to bids of around 25 million pounds.
While the 26-year-old forward is a great talent and could well turn his career around if he gets over these fitness issues, Liverpool have been more than patient for almost two seasons and he might just have to prove himself elsewhere very soon.