Stepney Cole arrives

The longest, most tedious transfer in history finally concluded "Colegate" last night, right on the transfer window deadline.

After Arsenal banging on about him being worth £25m, we ended up paying £5m, with Gallas going in the other direction. Both clubs have been significantly strengthened, and both clubs have got rid of whinging players who didn't want to be there, so it isn't that bad. Doubly so, from our point of view, considering Gallas was in the last year of his contract and could have bought himself out of it for £4m.

Three years ago, in the Summer, before Roman arrived, Arsenal were convinced they were about to steal Gallas and JT from us. History changed that, but Gallas is 29 now, and his garlic-munching mates have obviously done a persuasion job on him. It was inevitable that Gallas had played his last game for us, and if you want one of the best defenders in Europe to leave, you don't really want him to go to your rivals, but in this case, I think both clubs have done alright.

Kenyon did ok with these negotiations, but he screwed them up last year when he should have paid Gallas what he was worth. The ridiculous irony of the situation is that if Gallas played for Milan, and we wanted to buy him, we'd be offering £30m plus about 150k a week, yet we were unwilling to pay him half that while he was already here.

We are now dangerously short at the back. Hopefully, Huth's proposed £6m move to Boro has been stopped, but if not, we'll be in the market for another centre-back in January!

The funniest bit of news yesterday was that Tevez, the young Argentine super-striker coveted by all the major clubs in Europe, arrived in London. West Ham! Owned by the faceless holding company (who many believe Roman is funding) who tried to buy West Ham last year, Mascherano and Tevez have suddenly landed in East London. It seems pretty evident that if they do ok, the club will be sold to the holding company, for a pre-agreed price, and everyone will have got what they wanted...