January Transfer Window: Biggest Winners And Losers

The 2026 winter window closed on Monday, with Jorgen Strand Larsen’s $66 million move from Wolves to Crystal Palace the biggest deal done on deadline day. Truth be told, though, it was a pretty tame end to what’s been a fairly quiet month in the transfer market. Indeed, aside from Manchester City, most of Europe’s top teams did next-to-no mid-season business, while there was very little movement at all in France, Germany or Spain – which wasn’t that surprising, given January is traditionally a tough time to find good value for money. However, there was no shortage of talking points over the past four weeks, as even the inactivity was a major topic of debate for several sets of supporters desperate to see their respective clubs strengthen their playing squads, while there were also some proposed transfers that fell through in unfortunate circumstances. With all of that in mind, GOAL is on hand to run through the biggest winners and losers of the 2026 winter window… WINNER: Endrick It was player power that got Xabi Alonso sacked at Real Madrid – not overlooking Endrick. However, the coach’s reluctance to play the Brazilian was bizarre, and it’s only looking more absurd after Endrick’s sensational start to life in Ligue 1. Even accounting for the undoubtedly lower standard of play in France, the 19-year-old’s performances since arriving at Lyon have been mightily impressive, with Endrick netting four goals in his first four appearances for Lyon. All of a sudden, a player who saw just 99 minutes of game time during the first half of the season looks more than capable of making the Brazil squad for the World Cup – not least because the Selecao are led by Carlo Ancelotti, for whom Endrick scored seven times during his first season at the Bernabeu. Of course, game time is always going to be an issue for Endrick as long as Kylian Mbappe remains at Madrid, but he’s already making the most of his much-needed opportunity to show that he remains destined to do great things in the European game. LOSER: Liverpool Liverpool deserve credit for fending off stiff competition from Chelsea and Manchester United to sign Jeremy Jacquet, who will join the Reds from Rennes this summer. However, Liverpool needed a center back now – not at the end of the season. Of course, in the lead-up to the winter window, the presumption was that the Premier League champions would make another move for Marc Guehi, who had already recorded his goodbye video to Crystal Palace fans before his deadline-day move to Anfield last September was effectively blocked by Eagles manager Oliver Glasner. However, the Reds no longer had any intention of paying a fee for Guehi, with the hope being that he would arrive on a free transfer at the end of the season. Guehi, though, did not want to wait around, and instead moved to Manchester City in what was a bitter blow for Liverpool supporters that has only been compounded by the Reds’ refusal to bring in another center back this month. The fans’ fury is perfectly understandable, as the season-ending injury suffered by Giovanni Leoni, coupled with Joe Gomez’s ongoing inability to stay fit, means that Arne Slot still has only two senior center backs in his squad. When you also factor into the equation that Liverpool are having to play midfielders at right back because Conor Bradley’s campaign is over, Jeremie Frimpong is being plagued by hamstring problems and a late January move for Lutsharel Geertruida failed to come off, it’s hard to be optimistic about their hopes of finishing in the top five of the Premier League – let alone winning a trophy. Jacquet’s belated arrival points to a brighter future for the sixth-placed Reds and their brittle backline, but the bottom line is that Liverpool’s squad is actually weaker now than it was when the window opened a month ago. WINNER: Manchester City It’s not easy to get good value for money during the January transfer window. Manchester City know that to their considerable cost. Just a year ago, they signed five players for a combined £177 million ($241m) – and not one of them could be considered an unqualified success. However, City look to have pulled off a mini-masterstroke this month by signing two proven Premier League performers in Guehi and Antoine Semenyo for just £84m ($115m). Admittedly, paying £20m ($27m) for a defender with just six months left on his contract is unusual and yet it cannot be considered anything but a bargain in the case of Guehi, an England international with his best years ahead of him who has immediately helped Pep Guardiola solve his central defensive injury crisis. Semenyo has also made an instant impact at the Etihad, which is obviously not in the least bit surprising given the form he was in at Bournemouth, and, just like Guehi, he was a player that nearly all of City’s Premier League rivals would have loved to have signed this month – chief among them Liverpool. So, while City’s spending spree last January did nothing to turn their campaign around, this year’s deals have already put them in a much better position to win at least one trophy between now and the end of the season. LOSER: Crystal Palace On January 7, Oliver Glasner said that while every player at Crystal Palace was available for the right price, he thought captain Guehi would stay at Selhurst Park until the end of the season. Just over a week later, Guehi was gone, sold to Man City for £20m – which made a mockery of Glasner’s belief that his skipper would only be allowed to leave for “a very high fee”. The Austrian, who had fought so hard to keep Guehi last summer, was predictably furious when he found out about the City deal and the very next day he stunned reporters by revealing that he will leave Palace when his contract expires at the end of the season. Glasner initially insisted that his shock announcement was unconnected to Guehi’s exit, but after his team’s 2-1 loss at Sunderland on January 17, he admitted that he felt “abandoned” by the club and lamented the fact that his players had had their “hearts torn out” before the game – a very obvious and deliberate reference to the news of Guehi’s move to Manchester. The atmosphere at Selhurst Park hasn’t improved at all in the interim, with Palace having paid a club-record fee for Strand Larsen to replace Jean-Philippe Mateta, only for the Frenchman’s move to AC Milan to collapse, while they also failed to get a deal over the line for Dwight McNeil, much to the intense frustration of the winger and his partner. Brennan Johnson did, at least, arrive earlier in the window and the former Tottenham winger could yet prove a useful acquisition, but a set of supporters that were in dreamland last May are now trying to come to terms with the nightmare scenario of seeing the key protagonists of their historic FA Cup triumph leave the club. Such is the dog-eat-dog nature of modern football, of course, and while there’s a lot of sympathy out there for the Eagles’ fans, there’s none for chairman Steve Parish, who infamously argued against helping lower-league clubs financially crippled by the Covid-19 crisis by writing, “The supermarkets aren’t instructed to help the corner shops.” Karma really can be cruel sometimes! LOSER: Harvey Elliott Harvey Elliott is one of the most talented young players in England. There is simply no disputing that statement. Just last summer, Elliott was the best player on show at the Under-21 European Championship, with his five goals during the Young Lions’ triumph earning him the Player of the Tournament award. The only problem was that by that stage, Liverpool had already signed Florian Wirtz, ending what hope Elliott had of ever becoming a regular in his favoured attacking midfield role at Anfield. Consequently, Elliott reluctantly decided to leave the team he supported as a boy and joined Aston Villa on loan. However, the deal included a conditional obligation buy, meaning the move would become permanent for £35m ($48m) once Elliott made 10 appearances for his new team – and that felt like a formality, particularly after the 22-year-old featured in Villa’s first three games following the September international break. However, we’re now into February and Elliott has still only featured in seven matches in all competitions. Basically, PSR-affected Villa don’t want to spend what little money they have on a player Unai Emery isn’t “convinced by”, and given he’s surplus to requirements on Merseyside, Elliott has been left in limbo, as a January transfer to another European club wasn’t possible as players are forbidden from representing more than two teams in the same season. Elliott did get 90 minutes for the first time this season in Villa’s clash with Red Bull Salzburg last week and commented on Instagram, “How I’ve missed that!”, while captain Tyron Mings amusingly responded with the Ian Wright ‘I thought you was dead!’ meme. Unfortunately, there’s nothing particularly funny about Elliott’s situation, as Emery reiterated after both the Salzburg game and Sunday’s Premier League clash with Brentford that Villa’s stance hasn’t changed. They still have no intention of triggering the purchase clause between now and the end of the season that started with such promise for Elliott but is now destined to end in bitter frustration. WINNER: Ademola Lookman Ademola Lookman bid farewell to “the Atalanta family” on Monday night. “After nearly four years, the time has come for me to say goodbye,” he wrote on social media. “From the moment I arrived in Bergamo, you welcomed me like one of your own and pushed me to be the best version of myself. “Together, we made history. European champions, a night none of us will ever forget. Scoring a hat-trick in a European final and lifting a trophy with this club after a 61-year trophy drought will stay with me forever.” The thing is, though, Lookman had been eyeing a move away from Atalanta ever since that unforgettable night in Dublin in May 2024. He even went on strike last summer to try to force through a move to Inter, after the Bergamaschi surprisingly rejected a €45m offer from their Serie A rivals because they were intent on holding out for €50m. In hindsight, they really should have let Lookman leave back then, given he scored just two more goals for La Dea before they eventually felt compelled to accept a €35m bid from Atletico Madrid just one day before the close of the winter window. Of course, Atalanta are entitled to feel a little let down by Lookman. While he has claimed all along that the club broke certain promises made to him, the Nigeria international arguably should have displayed at least a little more respect towards the club that effectively turned his career around. He won’t care now, of course. At 28 years of age, the London-born forward has belatedly arrived at the kind of elite European club that he’s always believed he was destined to represent. LOSER: Jean-Philippe Mateta Not many players have had a worse deadline day than Mateta. Maybe not even Peter Odemwingie. The France international had unsurprisingly wanted out of a crumbling Crystal Palace and, once the Eagles agreed a deal with Wolves for Strand Larsen, the way was clear for Mateta to complete a dream move to AC Milan. However, after undergoing a medical in London on Sunday, further tests in Paris the following day revealed a knee problem that prompted Milan to pull out of the proposed transfer. On top of the fact that he must return to a club that he made it very clear that he wanted to leave, it’s now being reported that the injury detected might actually require surgery, meaning Mateta could be facing up to three months on the sidelines – which would be an absolute disaster for a player hoping to make Didier Deschamps’ squad for this summer’s World Cup in North America. Indeed, in light of the fact that Palace manager Glasner revealed that he had to leave his star striker out of the squad for Sunday’s clash with Nottingham Forest because he didn’t “feel in the right place to play”, one can only imagine what’s going through Mateta’s mind now. LOSER: Lazio Lazio kept their fading hopes of European qualification alive by netting a 100th-minute winner in Friday’s Serie A clash with Genoa at the Stadio Olimpico. However, there were only 5,000 people to see Danilo Cataladi’s last-gasp penalty – because the majority of the Biancocelesti’s supporters were effectively on strike over a lack of investment in the senior squad. Tellingly, coach Maurizio Sarri shares the fans’ frustration, so he wasn’t about to criticise them over the no-show in his post-match interview. “These have been difficult weeks for multiple reasons,” the visibly aggrieved Tuscan told DAZN. “I’m happy with the response of my team on a very peculiar evening without fans in the stadium. It wasn’t easy, but as I said to the boys, ‘What the fans did was an act of love.'” One can certainly appreciate why the supporters felt compelled to take drastic action. While Lazio brought in five players during the January window, they only did so for half the money they made by selling key duo Valentin Castellanos and Matteo Guendozi inside the first eight days of the winter window. To make matters much, much worse, controversial club president Claudio Lotito was caught on camera blaming Sarri for players wanting to leave Lazio – which obviously didn’t go over well with the former Chelsea boss. “Just 10 days ago a player came into my office crying before he left, so there is no problem of rapport between me and the squad,” Sarri told DAZN. “It seems unpleasant if they say that a player was sold because he didn’t get along with me, especially as the players who have left told me a very different version of events.” Indeed, Sarri claimed that some players “wanted to leave because they don’t see any ambition in this club”. On the plus side, Lazio ultimately decided against allowing Alessio Romagnoli to move to Al-Sadd, but that was reportedly all down to Sarri’s public and private protestations, while the defender’s agent subsequently claimed that his client was still owed money in wages from the club. Don’t be at all surprised, then, if the supporter strikes continue at the Stadio Olimpico in the coming weeks – and maybe even escalate… WINNER: Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain have only gone and done it again! Having previously upset Barcelona by signing Neymar, Xavi Simons, Lionel Messi and Ousmane Dembele, the Ligue 1 outfit convinced Dro Fernandez to swap Camp Nou for Parc des Princes during the January transfer window. Dro’s defection is unquestionably closer to Simons than Neymar on the scale of shocking losses, but one only has to look at the reaction to his exit to underline just how highly the 18-year-old attacker was rated by the Blaugrana. PSG actually ended up paying €8m (£6.9m) for Dro – €2m more than his buyout clause – in a reported attempt to smooth relations with Barca, but Joan Laporta still called it “an unpleasant situation”. “We had agreed a new deal with Dro for when he turned 18,” the Blaugrana president explained, “and, surprisingly his agent informed us that he couldn’t fulfil what had been agreed.” Hansi Flick was even more incensed by the exit of a player that he’d included on Barca’s pre-season tour of Japan and South Korea, before handing him his senior debut in September. “I put a lot of effort in the young players and helping them improve, but there are a lot of people around them,” Flick said. “There are footballers who are 17 or 18 but who have people who make decisions. I don’t want to say more.” And he didn’t really need to; Flick’s frustration was obvious – and wholly understandable. Barca have lost another top talent, while PSG have gained one. LOSER: Chelsea’s defense Approximately 48 hours before the transfer window closed, the word was that Chelsea had won the race to sign Jeremy Jacquet. Sky Sports went so far as to claim that the Frenchman was only interested in joining the Blues. It, thus, came as quite a nasty surprise to Chelsea supporters – and some supposedly well-placed sources – when it emerged that Jacquet wouldn’t be arriving at Stamford Bridge this month, and had instead agreed a summer switch to Liverpool. Chelsea responded to the setback by recalling Mamadou Sarr from his loan spell at sister-club Stasbourg, but the 20-year-old’s return to west London hardly feels like the solution to Chelsea’s vulnerability in the centre of defence – and it’s not as if Jacquet would have provided the kind of experience that a ridiculously young side so desperately needs either. Todd Boehly & Co. have spent an awful lot of money over the past few years, but while they’ve assembled some seriously talented players in midfield and up front, they’re still shockingly short on quality and leadership at the back. The obvious fear now for the fans is that the Blues’ soft center might well cost them qualification for next season’s Champions League, which would only intensify the scrutiny of their recruitment strategy. LOSER: Cristiano Ronaldo Al-Nassr closed to within one point of Saudi Pro League leaders Al-Hilal on Monday with a 1-0 win away to Al-Riyadh. Cristiano Ronaldo played no part in the vital victory, though, and not because he was injured or ill. According to widespread reports, Al-Nassr’s star striker had effectively gone on strike over the club’s failure to strengthen their squad during the winter window. Ronaldo apparently feels that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns the country’s top four teams, have been favouring Al-Nassr’s rivals in the transfer market – and Al-Hilal in particular. The league leaders have certainly done some decent business in January, bringing in former Arsenal defender Pablo Mari as well as Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema, who joined on a free transfer after falling out with former club Al-Ittihad. It was the latter move which allegedly tipped Ronaldo over the edge, resulting in the Portuguese refusing to play against Al-Riyadh. Obviously, Ronaldo’s competitive streak is what made him such a legendary figure in the game, and it’s clear that his failure to win a major honour since moving to the Middle East bothers him enormously. However, this just looks like a 40-year-old man-child throwing his toys out of the pram once again. Remember, Al-Nassr made Ronaldo the highest-paid player in world football, while at the same time surrounding him with high-profile players such as Sadio Mane, Joao Felix and Kingsley Coman – with the latter two arriving at Al-Awwal Park just last summer. And what must his teammates think of the fact that he clearly believes that not all of them are good enough for a team with title aspirations? Maybe, then, the problem isn’t a lack of quality or depth at Al-Nassr, but a lack of leadership and accountability from their captain. If Ronaldo wanted Al-Nassr to spend even more money on new signings, he could have helped by taking a pay cut. WINNER: Atletico Madrid It’s rare that a club manages to make money during a transfer window and yet end up with a stronger squad – but that’s what Atletico Madrid have arguably managed to do. The Rojiblancos pocketed €63m from selling squad players Conor Gallagher and Giacomo Raspadori to Tottenham and Atalanta. Then, on deadline day, they wrapped up a €35m deal for Ademola Lookman before signing Rodrigo Mendoza from Elche and Obed Vargas from Seattle Sounders just before the window shut. Lookman unquestionably represents an upgrade on Raspadori, and while his recent record in Serie A is not good, that had a lot to do with his differences with the club, as illustrated by his impressive performances for Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations. Mendoza, meanwhile, represents quite the coup for Atletico, as the likes of Barcelona, Arsenal and Manchester City were all keen on the 20-year-old midfielder. Vargas, meanwhile, was one of the best performers in MLS last season and has already established himself in the Mexico squad ahead of the World Cup. It would be asking a lot for the new arrivals to propel Diego Simeone’s side back into La Liga title contention, given they’re currently 10 points behind leaders Barcelona, but the deadline-day deals should definitely give Atleti a lift ahead of their tricky Champions League play-off against Club Brugge later this month. LOSER: The rest of Europe Villarreal really only had themselves to blame for being only one of four teams eliminated from this season’s Champions League with one round still to play. The Yellow Submarine lost games they never should have lost, most notably against Pafos, Copenhagen and Ajax. However, there’s no doubt that their campaign was negatively affected by the loss of key attacker Yeremy Pino back in August. “We’re a Champions League team,” coach Marcelino pointed out, “and we had a Spain international, but Crystal Palace, not one of England’s top clubs, came along and signed him for a significant sum of money and with a higher salary than any Spanish team could pay.” Again, while there was no excuse for Villarreal picking up just one point from eight Champions League games, there’s no doubting the veracity of his claim about La Liga clubs (with the notable exception of Real Madrid) being unable to compete with their Premier League rivals in the transfer market. But it’s not just Spanish sides. Across the continent, only Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain are now in a position to even challenge even mid-table English teams for top players, as underlined by the fact that Premier League clubs spent more money than the other four ‘Big Five’ leagues combined for the second window in a row. The net result is a concentration of talent in the Premier League that enabled five of their teams to progress directly to the last 16 of the Champions League, while Spanish sides such as Villarreal and Athletic Club fell at the first hurdle. So, while all such transfer market dominance is great for English football, it’s a concern for those that would like to see equally competitive and high-quality leagues all across Europe.