Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Internazionale Milan, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal. So many great clubs in the heart of Europe but not one has yet made a major transfer purchase in this January transfer window. To some degree or another, it could be argued, that each and every one of those aforementioned clubs need at least one single player, if not more in a few different positions.
Barcelona lost David Villa, their primary striker (even if he isn’t always picked in the Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola’s striker less system) for the majority, if not all, of the remainder of the season because of his broken leg. Real Madrid have numbers for each and every position in the squad but the club, collectively, needs a boost. The regular defeats to Barcelona sap morale and the simple injection of some fresh blood, a new player, might change the mentality and reinvigorate belief that the team can beat Barcelona. AC Milan and Internazionale have both been linked with Carlos Tevez of Manchester City and, at one time or another, were each apparently very close to signing him. Both clubs could do with him but at the very most only one will get him. As things stand it appears unlikely that even one of the two will sign him.
In Germany Bayern Munich are not the force of old. They frequently lose matches that they ought to win and have an unhealthy reliance on a trio of players (Mario Gomez, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben). The other star players, like Thomas Muller and Bastan Schweinsteiger, have yet this season to hit previous heights and until they do it is not sure if Bayern Munich will win the German Bundesliga, which was won last season by Borussia Dortmund.
In England it is now known that Mario Balotelli, of Manchester City, is set to miss the next four matches after stamping on Scott Parker of Tottenham Hotspur during the weekend clash between the two sides which ended in a victory for Manchester City. That being the case it means, with Carlos Tevez on strike, that Manchester City have only two available senior strikers, Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko, for the next four matches. There is a pressing need to sign a striker there immediately, and even in the long term the team is understood to have resigned themselves to the fact that Carlos Tevez is leaving (in fact it would probably be more accurate to say they are pushing him out of the door with haste) so the club only has three senior strikers on the books at a good time. All it takes is a couple of injuries, therefore, for an injury crisis to ensue. Manchester City need another striker.
