THE TRANSFER WINDOW slammed shut on Friday leaving our teams to struggle through to January with the squads they have.

Southampton were as shrewd as ever in the transfer market.  Having cashed in the likes of Peter Crouch for £7m and James Beattie for £5m in recent years they somehow managed to score £6m for sulky sheep farmer Kenwyne Jones.  They wisely spent their funds on two free signings (gotta watch that bank balance) including the wonderfully named Stern John, he’s a serious player you know.  Anyway the Saints won again, as good teams do, beating a grief stricken QPR 3-0.  We’d like to be sympathetic but, you know, gotta win your matches.

Finally silverware at St. James’s Park.  Obviously not Newcastle’s but Durham C.C.C decided that they’d show the Toon Army what it actually looked like as they paraded the trophy from their recent cup success.  This spurred the Magpies on to miss almost double the amount of chances as previous weeks and only the complete ineptitude of Titus Bramble (that was a good sale by the way) saved the day.  Forgetting he was now a Wigan player he passed straight to a Newcastle player who in turn set up a certain Michael Owen to score.  It was Newcastle’s first home goal for 646 minutes and the players were confused when it took the Geordie masses a few seconds to work out what had happened.  By my reckoning Derby at home on the 22.12.07 should be the next goal date for the Toon diary.

Everton smashed their record transfer fee this week recruiting Yakubu for £11.25m and Thomas Gravesen on a free, reuniting him with his equally follicularly challenged partner Lee Carsley.  Everton then proceeded to boot the ball high into the sun so that the shiny-headed midfield duo could blind the Bolton defence. It worked; Everton won 2-1 with goals from Yakubu and Lescott.

Whoever doubted the ability of Martin O’Neill in the transfer market was silenced yesterday as Villa were 2-0 winners over Chelsea.  Having watched Zat Knight bury one past his own keeper for Fulham last week against his side, he decided to sign the beanstalk brummie who then scored for Villa again this week, top job.  Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich wants more exciting football, something Mr. Mourinho has applied to his hairdo, but was utterly baffled when this claret and blue side played his fluorescent misfits off the pitch.  He left early, apparently to greet his players in the dressing room.  It appears Mr. Abramovich has the same legal team as the guy that “didn’t poison Alexander Litvinyenko. He was just having a cup of tea, Russian style”.

Arsenal captured a Russian of their own this week as Alisher Usmanov bought 15% of the club.  He’s unlikely to interfere too much on the playing side of things as his interests, by the look of him, seem to lie more in the corporate hospitality side of the Emirates, if you know what I mean.  Arsenal managed a comfortable 3-1 victory over Pompey as David James played Kamikaze keeper again, flattening Van Persie to give the Gunners a penalty.  You might be England number 1 David but please stop playing like it.

The most seen player on transfer deadline day was Internationale’s Adriano, who was in at least 10 different cities at once.  It appears he may join West Ham in the coming weeks on loan but with Welsh dragon Craig Bellamy on hot form he may not be needed.  Many of West Ham’s new signings may have joined thinking they could get cheap shopping when they heard the owner’s from Iceland, but despite this miscommunication the Hammer’s look to be settling well.  A 3-0 defeat of the Royals confirming this thought.

Lastly to Ebbsfleet who were quiet on the last days of the transfer window.  However, famous for fielding the “man with no name” they can regularly bring in new players without anybody noticing.  Ebbsfleet unfortunately lost 1-0 to Stevenage, that is despite captain Paul McCarthy pulling off a fine save from a Stevenage free-kick.  For those of you that don’t know, Paul McCarthy is a defender and was sent-off.  Lead by example eh?