Silly, silly, silly month is over.

By: Shazback | February 3rd, 2008

Whilst the EPL has splashed £150M (that’s £7,5M per club, and since Man U and Arsenal didn’t spend a penny, £8,3M per club for the other 18) during January 2008, French clubs were more conservative. With a grand total of 27 buys (real buys, not loans), the french mercato wasn’t the most exciting one ever, even though various controversies (Fred and Lyon’s attempted divorce, Gouffran’s love-hate relationship between Caen and PSG, and… And that’s about it, I think…), meaning that the main action was Lyon’s swoop for Ederson (even though he has been loaned back to Nice for the rest of the season), Lyon’s signing of Argentine “Maradona #3,428″ a.k.a. Carlos “Chelito” Delgado from Cruz Azul, and Lyon’s prolonged transfer tractations with Juventus to get Boumsong back ~~on the French NT~~ in Ligue 1. Oh, and Lyon’s strange idea that selling Belhadj to Lens was a wise move. Did I mention that Lyon were by far the most active team in the transfer market? Rennes’ transfer policy was pretty straightforward : get rid of Emerson and Edman, and bring in a defender to cover up for Edman’s departure.

Selling Emerson was a pretty straightforwards affair, and the 5M€ man (Rennes’ biggest transfer last summer) reutrned to Al-Saad (in Qatar), for 2M€ more than he joined for (7M€ that is). Pretty good deal by anybody’s standards to make a profit off a player who only played 30 minutes in 5 months. Edman only had 6 months left on his contract, but everyone was O.K. on him leaving this winter. As a lot of Rennes players have done recently, he left for the EPL’s greener pastures and met up with ex-Rennes player Mario Melchiot at Wigan in a bid to keep them away from the Championship.

To replace Edman, Rennes managed to get Djimi Traore of Portsmouth (and ex-Liverpool glory/shame, you choose) on loan with the possibility of buying him if he performs well enough. Traore is a Champions’ League winner with Liverpool (2004/05), but also has all three trophies of the “Treble of cups” that Liverpool did in 2000-01 : FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup. So he’s quality enough for Rennes! Sure, he’s prone to lapses in concentration, but he’s used to playing at the highest level, and since he’s only 27 it’s a great step forwards for Rennes to attract an important player, even if he wasn’t called up by Mali for their ACN 2008 squad. He will recieve a more central role than Edman had, since Echiejilé is proving to be a very decent left-back, and Hansson is the player Lacombe seems to find the weakest at the moment in Rennes’ back four.

However, Rennes also scooped up a young player in the last days of the transfer window, signing Zambia international Fzlix Katongo from Atlético Petróleos Luanda in the Angolan Girabola. Now, I don’t know what this young player is worth, but he did contribute a goal to Zambia’s three-nil win over Sudan (ok, not exactly world-class opposition), and is described as an overall lively and intelligent midfielder. He might not be an important addition for the latter stages of the season, since Rennes have a lot of talent in midfield and attack, but since he’s only 23, he might be a very good signing for next season or the one after, when our ageing stars (Pagis, Leroy, Wiltord, Moreira, Cheyrou) decide to step down a gear or give up the beautiful game. Anyway, he’s joined on a very small transfer (200,000€) so it’s not a big problem if he’s a flop.

Videos~:

Djimi Traore lifting the UEFA Cup in 2001 with Liverpool after beating Deportivo Alaves 5-4 on the Golden (Own) Goal rule :

P.S. Skip 5 minutes.