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Transfer Window Shuts This has been an extraordinary transfer window. It’s a relief that it’s over, and we can now, broadly speaking, concentrate on actual football matches for a few months, but it would also be disingenuous to suggest that the last few months haven’t provided us with some moments of base entertainment. Advertisement So in among all the rumours, the negotiations, the signings and the more than £3billion ($4bn) spent by Premier League clubs, here are some of the maddest moments of the 2025 summer transfer window. The transfer window is not just a series of individual events, but a melange of interconnecting blocks, one impacting the next so that otherwise unlinked players can have a significant impact on each other’s careers. Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa have little in common other than they’re both a) Premier League forwards and b) good, but this summer ensured they will be forever cosmically linked. Isak wanted to leave Newcastle for Liverpool. Newcastle did not want Isak to leave. Especially if they couldn’t source a replacement. Which they did, in Wissa. Wissa wanted to leave Brentford for Newcastle. Brentford did not want Wissa to leave. Both then absented themselves from their current clubs while their prospective clubs tried not to spend the initially quoted transfer fees. In the end, both more or less spent the initially quoted transfer fees. Was it all a colossal waste of time that could easily have been sorted much, much sooner? That’s not for us to say. OK, it’s not actually a tragedy. But it’s also not a good advert for behaving ‘well’ when there’s a transfer in the works. Because while Isak and Wissa got their moves, Guehi didn’t, after Crystal Palace failed to source an adequate replacement for him, and his transfer to Liverpool collapsed in the final minutes of the window. Ultimately, it will be fine. Guehi seems relatively content where he is, so he’ll stay there until January or next summer, when he’ll get his move anyway — probably to Liverpool — and in the interim he’ll play in front of fans who still love him. Still, when Liverpool visit Selhurst Park in a few weeks, he may well gaze over at the other dressing room and wonder what could have been. It wasn’t just that Tottenham had missed out on a transfer target. It wasn’t even that they had missed out on a transfer target to their biggest rivals. It was that they missed out on a transfer target to their biggest rivals, in a way that seemed to confirm every criticism that Tottenham fans have about how their club goes about things. Advertisement A deal had been broadly agreed for Eze. It had taken a while, but it looked in the bag. Then, came the appearance of dithering. It dragged on for slightly too long than was comfortable. And then Arsenal, with their bigger budget and their apparently more decisive approach and their sentimental pull to the boyhood Gooner, swooped in and whipped Eze away. And the worst part was, it wasn’t the first time this summer that something like this had happened. When Nottingham Forest complained that Tottenham’s approach for Morgan Gibbs-White was not entirely above board, and that their £60million bid had not in fact triggered a release clause in their No 10’s contract, it felt like bit of a distraction, a negotiating tactic even. Forest had just sold Anthony Elanga to Newcastle, so perhaps they just wanted to stall, or show their fans they were putting up a fight, or simply get a bit more money for their best player. The assumption was that everyone would shake hands on £65million or something, and the delay would turn out to be a footnote. And then a video appeared on Forest’s social media feeds from pitch side after a pre-season friendly in Portugal, of Gibbs-White looking slightly frazzled, standing next to owner Evangelos Marinakis. Gibbs-White was staying, had signed a new contract at Forest and was telling the world about Mr Marinakis’s ambition. Heads were spinning, everyone was stunned, not least Tottenham themselves. The whiff of farce was in the air. And yet… Despite these humiliations, Tottenham then suddenly developed a ruthless streak and swooped in to sign Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig. Simons looked for most of the summer like he was heading to Chelsea, but that move seemed to stall, so Tottenham — a new, thrusting, alpha Tottenham, who knew what they wanted so just took it — swooped. Advertisement Incredibly, Spurs might have been thoroughly embarrassed twice but emerged from it all better than if they had got their first two choices. Simons is younger, cheaper and has more top-level experience than both Gibbs-White and Eze, and on paper at least fits them perfectly. It wasn’t by design, but in the end Tottenham somehow made it work. And that’s why one of the most sensible transfers of the summer is also one of its maddest moments. When Jamie Vardy’s time at Leicester came to an end, it was quite difficult to predict where he would go next. Wrexham were mentioned. Celtic made some sense, given the Brendan Rodgers connection. Rangers too, perhaps just because the idea of Vardy rustling either side of the Old Firm was too delicious. Rumours of a move to MLS were fuelled when his wife, Rebekah, posted a picture of their children wearing Inter Miami shirts. Not many predicted that newly promoted Italian side Cremonese would be his choice. But there he was, arriving at Milan Linate airport to confirm his arrival, mobbed by fans of the club for whom he signed autographs. One of which seemed to be on a tattoo of his face that an especially keen supporter seemed to have inked on his calf which… feels a bit much. But it showed that Vardy will play somewhere he is already adored and, even more curiously, alongside Lazio loanee Romano Floriani Mussolini, great-grandson of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The thing about refusing to play for Club A because you think you’re getting a move to Club B, is that you have to be pretty sure Club B definitely, absolutely, without question want you and they won’t go for someone else. Alas, for Emi Martinez, when he told Aston Villa he wasn’t up for playing against Crystal Palace on deadline eve because Manchester United were circling, he didn’t account for United pivoting (back) to Belgian keeper Senne Lammens. Other transfer windows remain open (your Turkeys, your Saudi Arabias) so Martinez might not have to slink back to Villa Park, but he was ultimately left looking rather foolish. It did, however, lead to one of the more bizarre TV interviews, when Sky Sports asked Unai Emery before the game why Martinez wasn’t involved, and he simply repeated the name of the man who was playing — “Marco. Bizot. ” — in answer to every question. You could probably make the argument, without too many people laughing at you, that despite losing their best player, Newcastle ended the transfer window with a stronger overall squad than when they started it. Anthony Elanga, Nick Woltemade, Aaron Ramsdale, Jacob Ramsey, Malick Thiaw and Wissa all came through the door. Advertisement But boy, did they have to suffer a lot of rejections to reach that point. Hugo Ekitike. Liam Delap. Brian Mbeumo. Joao Pedro. Benjamin Sesko. James Trafford. Dean Huijsen. Newcastle were, to one extent or another, in for all of those players, and they all signed somewhere else. And those are just the ones we know about. Not much else to say about that one, really. Granit Xhaka signed for Sunderland. For a while it looked like he was going to sign for Milan. In the end, he signed for Sunderland. It might tell you plenty about Manchester United that, from pretty much the end of last season, they had players in their ‘bomb squad’ who at some points of their careers could probably have sold for a combined £350million or so, not welcome to even train with the players that Ruben Amorim did want. Marcus Rashford, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnacho and Tyrell Malacia were all in this exiled group, while Rasmus Hojlund, Andre Onana and Kobbie Mainoo were also, to one extent or another, out in the cold. None of those players have, in recent times at least, been roaring successes, and it would be reductive to say that they were all pushed out because a manager who can only just boast a point-per-game record in 10 months at the club doesn’t rate them. But it’s not entirely untrue either. Chelsea made it pretty clear from the early days of the summer that they no longer had any use for Nicolas Jackson. He played a bit at the Club World Cup (admittedly not helping his cause by getting sent off four minutes after coming on as a substitute against Flamengo), but after the signings of Liam Delap and Joao Pedro, Chelsea might as well have hung a ‘free to a good home’ sign around his neck. Moves to various places were mooted, but in the end he seemed to find an acceptable destination, in Bayern Munich. Advertisement But then Delap’s hamstring went and Chelsea were suddenly short up top. So they asked Jackson, who by this point was in Munich, to come back to London because, oh, as it turns out, they do need him after all. Or, as the writer Nick Pettigrew put it: ? I’m sorry Nick Jackson (woo)

There is no deal

We called off the Bayern loan-to-buy

Fly home to replace the injured guy? [image or embed] — Nick Pettigrew (@nick-pettigrew. bsky. social) 30 August 2025 at 16: 53 The request was politely turned down, Jackson’s agent gave Chelsea both barrels, and in the end he joined Bayern anyway. (Top photos: Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Nick Miller is a football writer for the Athletic and the Totally Football Show. He previously worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, ESPN and Eurosport, plus anyone else who would have him. Follow Nick on Twitter @Nick Miller79