Twice a year, on transfer deadline day, English football is gripped by an incomprehensible mania but, even in that context, what happened at Stamford Bridge on 31 January 2011 stands out. Signing Fernando Torres for £50m was bad enough but letting Nemanja Matic leave as a makeweight in the deal that brought David Luiz to Chelsea now looks just as bad. Matic completed a £20.75m return to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, which is an awful lot to pay for three years at finishing school.
Chelsea, perhaps, deserve some sort of credit for swallowing their pride and it may be they considered the alternative to be even worse. Manchester United were very interested in the player in the summer, and however galling it may be to have to pay £21m to recover a player who was once your own, it would be even worse to see him reinvigorating an ailing rival.
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