Sorry, Fans, But January Transfers Don't Win Premier League Titles

The Premier League news cycle has two settings these days: regular transfer tedium and 24-hour torture by transfers. I like to call the latter transfergeddon, and I would gladly sit through two hours of Ben Affleck saving the world to see it end.

Endless speculation. It's enough to make you question the goings-on in your own life sometimes.

Is my wife really going to her mother's for dinner tonight? Or did CaughtOffside pass along a rumour that actually had her transferring to Manchester City?

Has my son still not agreed on personal terms on getting dressed for nursery school this morning? What's his agent got to say about it?

But at the same time, we can't resist it. Transfer gossip is the stuff of boundless hope for football fans, and we're suggestible to almost anything—even when we know that 99.92 percent of rumours never happen and 63 percent are completely baseless (don't quote me on those stats, either).

Just say a big deal did happen for your Premier League club this winter. Just say they went out and bought exactly the kind of player they've been lacking the first half of the season. Naturally you'd be cock-a-hoop, but is there really any evidence to suggest a January signing can have the desired effect?

If we're talking about the title race, you'd have to say no. To illustrate my point, here are the last nine Premier League winners together with any notable signings they made in the January window, which opened for the first time during the 2002-03 season.

Season	Champions	Notable January Signings
2002-03	Manchester United	None
2003-04	Arsenal	Jose Antonio Reyes
2004-05	Chelsea	Jiri Jarosek
2005-06	Chelsea	Maniche (loan)
2006-07	Manchester United	Henrik Larsson (loan)
2007-08	Manchester United	Manucho, Rodrigo Possebon
2008-09	Manchester United	Zoran Tosic, Richie De Laet
2009-10	Chelsea	None
2010-11	Manchester United	Anders Lindegaard

Jose Antonio Reyes arrived to much fanfare at Arsenal in January 2004, but his was far from a defining contribution to their "Invincibles" season. That said, Reyes' influence was arguably the greatest of any on this list.

United fans will talk fondly about Henrik Larsson coming to Old Trafford in 2007, but two goals in 10 starts adds up to no more than a well-received cameo for the Swedish veteran.

Of the others listed, Zoran Tosic joined United from Partizan Belgrade in January 2010 and proved a monumental flop. Richie De Laet managed one start in the 2008-09 season. Anders Lindegaard was signed as a potential replacement for Edwin van der Sar, but didn't make a single Premier League appearance in the 2010-11 campaign.

Jiri Jarosek picked up a Premier League medal under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, but was gone by August 2005. Maniche was sent off on his debut and had a similar lifespan at the club the next season.

Looking at the evidence, it seems the only conclusion to draw here is that titles are not won in the January transfer window. Here are some potential reasons why:

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1. Managers always prefer to buy in the summer and take players through the club's preseason training regimen.

2. Teams on course for success generally have their house in order at the start of the season.

3. Players at Champions League clubs are cup-tied, and thus less appealing.

4. Prices are inflated in January.

5. January signings can be slow to acclimatize.

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To illustrate points Nos. 4 and 5, I give you Fernando Torres (£50 million from Liverpool to Chelsea) and Andy Carroll (£35 million from Newcastle to Liverpool), who helped take January transfer window spending to a record £225 million in 2011.

Experts say the figure is unlikely to be matched in 2012, and you wonder how much this year's decisions will be influenced by the abject failures of Torres and Carroll to justify their price tags.

But perhaps the most significant influence on 2012 winter spending by the title contenders is a simple matter of availability. It's all very well urging your club to go out and buy the best players, but if you look closely there just aren't that many of them sitting on the shelf.

"What can you get in January?" Sir Alex Ferguson asked recently. "I've said this many times now. The players we'd like we can't get. If the alternative is to sign a second-rate player, we don't want to do that."

That Ferguson turned to veteran Paul Scholes in January—and Arsene Wenger to Thierry Henry—could well be a precursor for January windows to come. Not only have fingers been burned by overpriced deals, but the evidence suggests big investments midway through the season don't deliver the required return.

Perhaps the best use of this January window is for clubs at the other end of the table. It's the relegation-threatened pack who have the most to gain, and the money they spend in these 31 days may well decide their Premiership fate.

For the likes of Blackburn, Wigan, QPR, Bolton and Wolves, the January window really is their transfergeddon.

For the 2012 Premier League champions, it's unlikely to be any more than a distraction. Unless of course Manchester City go out and buy half of Europe.