Chelsea have signed Serbia and Montenegro defender Branislav Ivanovic from Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow for an undisclosed fee. Ivanovic has been given a work permit, and has also passed a medical and finalised personal terms. According to reports, he can play anywhere in defence, but used to play as rightback for Lokomotiv.
Premiership
List of Premiership winter soccer transfers January 2008
Here is a list of all the transfer activity from in and around the Premiership. All the below mentioned transfers have had a Premiership club involved in some way or the other. All figures in pounds. If you find an error, please report it to us using the contact button on the top right hand corner of your screen.
Arsenal
In : Luke Freeman ( Gillingham-200K)
Out : Matt Connolly ( QPR), Lassana Diarra ( Portsmouth- rumoured to be around 5.5M), Kieran Gibbs ( Norwich – loan), Mark Randall ( Burnley)
Aston Villa
In : Wayne Routledge ( Tottenham -1.25m)
Out : Chris Herd ( Port Vale- loan), Stephen O’ Halloran ( Southampton- loan), Gary Cahill ( Bolton- loan)
How did the big four fare in the festive round of matches ?
The time around Christmas is always a busy one for Premiership teams. Instead of the standard one game a week, they play as many as four games in a span of 10 days. For managers, it is crunch time. The side leading the league going into the New Year is always tipped to be the favourite to win it. The managers also have to contend with tired players, and need to get their selections 100 % correct. Let us have a look at how Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United fared.
Game dates- Dec 22/23