Transfer Window Summer 2009

What is the general opinion?
Did Real ruin the transfer window for all the other clubs?
Will they challenge Barca now in La Liga?
Can Man City break into the top 4 in England after their signings?

I believe that some transfers,even if they are really good cannot make a great team.The example is again from Real,when they had made the galacticos.
I think that Barca would win the Primera and the champions league.And as tip,i dont know but it has stuck on my mind,this year's final in ch.l would Real-Barca...0-3 4 Barca.
Btw ,we have something in common with the Catalans.Mes que un club!
As Barca express Catalonia,OFI express Crete...
About City,i thought that they gonna send the gunners out of the first 4 clubs.But as much as i have seen Arsen did once again his miracle.+Hughes is a kind of not enough for the big step...It would be nice though if they manage to send out of the 4 United .Or Chelsea,why not...?

I'm as much of a sucker as anyone for good football and great players, but this Real transfer burst kinda leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I liked the galacticos, I watched them and admired them, but even they were gathered over a longer period of time than the current Real outfit. It's also important to remember that Real were not exactly transfer-shy in previous years.
So I sense some kind of obscenity in all this waste of (top-)class players,their disappearance somewhere between the bench and the stands; in this nouveau-rich attitude of pouring shitloads of money for players that a)are hard to gel into a team, b)are selected for marketing value, rather than the way they fill real gaps in the team. There's also obscenity in the way the expensive buys of recent years will be summarily shipped out of the club at ridiculous discount prices. Making mockery of money is obscene, especially if, as has happened before, they call out to the State to bail them out of their financial troubles. "We will retrieve our expenses", Perez claims, "selling merchandise". Oh, really? Apparently no other teams have Perez's IQ and new economic wisdom: "Let's buy a bunch of top players... What? We don't have the dough? Oh, silly, let's get a huge loan, and we'll repay it with the mugs and shirts and stuff we sell..." Now, that's Real for you in times of crisis. If I were Spanish, I'd be outraged. Banks let people and small enterprises starve, but they finance Florentino Perez in Wonderland with money they KNOW he won't pay them back (the state will)...

Don't get me wrong, this is not some sort of "capitalism out of football" call. The difference with City is that the Arabs' ambition is matched by the money they already have in their pockets.

I agree Perez's methods are crazy.
But with the elected club President system this is a danger because the fans see Barca winning everything and then Perez comes along with promises of Ronaldo etc and the fans get persuaded they need to panic and start spending fortunes.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a question of populism v. personal conscience. Do you see your club as part and extension of your society, or above everything else, including the rest of your personal values? Seems to me that the hardcore fans of big clubs have much more of a problem, as they cannot psychologically afford to lose. It's victory they love, not their team. So they're much more prone to root for populists like Perez...
This kind of transfer policy ruins the market, and creates a huge inflation in players' fees and wages. Who would worry about this? Almost everyone. Certainly not Real, as they're an institution that the spanish state cannot do away with...

And when they do win what does it mean after a policy like that?
Can it feel wonderful? Or hollow?