The mass hysteria around the transfer window "slamming shut" has me in two minds...on the one hand I can't stand the media hype around the whole thing and the amount of ill-informed "professionals" doing some good ol' fashioned 2+2=5 reporting, or the fact that Sky Sports have a reporter stationed outside of every Premier League stadium stopping anyone who looks like the could play a bit in the hope of uncovering a scoop (it really takes the p*ss when they interviewed poor Mark Hughes whilst he was still eating).
On the other hand I do love the will he/won't he aspect of it, the texts and tweets claiming that someones mate in baggage handling saw someone who looked kind of like someone famous, which obviously means they are signing for Man. City or Chelsea (depends which airport they're at). I do also like that it seems as if the whole football world has forgotten they're only allowed to make transfers for just the month of January until the 31st when all of a sudden they panic and try to sign anything with an agent.
Anyhow, enough of the waffle, what I want to briefly focus on is the brilliant little bit of business QPR managed to do in signing former French international Djibril Cisse (and as if to prove a point he's scored on his debut...again, that makes it 3 PL debuts and 3 goals). Now obviously his record for Lazio in the first half of the season was not the best...1 goal from 18 league appearances isn't great, but like he said himself, he always put a shift in and never let his head drop. I was amazed to see on a number of websites QPR being mocked for signing him and I can't for the life of me work our why, even at 30 he is going to be one of the better strikers in the Premier League, he's got pace, power and his goalscoring record speaks for itself.
In his early career at Auxerre he managed to bag and impressive 70 league goals in 128 league appearances and was the top scorer in Ligue 1 twice, making him one of the hottest striking prospects in Europe and sealing a £13million move to Liverpool. He started at Liverpool where he had left off at Auxerre, scoring 11 goals in his first 23 appearances before that horrific leg-break against Blackburn. He was never the same player at Liverpool, mainly due to Benitez playing him as a right winger upon his return to action.
A falling out with Benitez led to him getting a move to Marseille in the summer of 2006, however on the day he was supposed to sign he suffered his second horrific leg break in a friendly match for France against China. The two clubs still managed to strike a deal and Cisse was back on his way to France.
Skip forward to 2009, and after a hat-full of goals at Marseille and a successful loan spell at Sunderland, Djibril was on his way to Panathanikos for €20m...47 goals in 61 games justified the move and won him a move to Lazio...and we're back where we started.
Despite the perceived attitude and the dodgy hair do, Cisse is one of the most underrated strikers in the European game. Hopefully he can do a job at QPR and show the world he's still got it...maybe he'll even smile...
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