The January transfer window closed last night and the £37.1?million paid by Manchester United for Juan Mata remained as the highest transfer fee paid by a British club during this window.

There were some deals done at the last minute, however, including the loan move of Fulham’s Dimitar Berbatov to Monaco until the end of the season. Fulham acted quickly to replace Berbatox by signing Konstantinos Mitroglou, the Greece striker, from Olympiacos.

Berbatov is a good player. I’ve always admired his technique and although to a lot of people he appears lazy and disinterested, that is just his persona. Going to France will be a good challenge for him and I’m sure he’ll be up to it. I’m surprised another English club did not come in and snap him up. He doesn’t have to prove anything in the English league. He scored goals there and would have been a good signing for someone.

When I was a player we did not have a January transfer window — clubs could buy players whenever they needed them — but I think the present transfer system is good. It certainly creates a lot of interest on the sports programmes and in the newspapers and websites.

If you are a coach, you have to plan better for the players you want to buy and not just buy anybody. You have to be a bit more thoughtful on who you want to get before the season kicks off. In the summer, if you do what you are supposed to do, you can get the players you want for when the season kicks off. Then when the transfer window opens again in January, you should just have to fill in the additions you think you need. The transfer periods has its good points, I think.

I’ve heard that Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, is not a big fan of the transfer window, but as an economist he must understand that this is a business and when things are going good, the prices are going to go up — and football is no different.

At times it becomes outrageous with prices paid for players hitting astronomical levels. Salaries have risen, too, but like I tell people, when you look at the money paid to a movie star for a couple months’ work, then surely football players and other athletes are worth what they get.

Not surprisingly, the clubs busiest in the transfer market have been some of those in the thick of the relegation race, while clubs like Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City had made few big signings leading up to yesterday’s deadline.

My former team, West Ham United, brought in six new players, five on loan including two Italians while Abdul Razak, the former Manchester City midfielder, comes in on loan from Anzhi Makhachkala.

West Ham got an important draw away to Chelsea in midweek and let’s hope that is the start of the team’s turnaroud before today’s home match against Swansea. Another club in the bottom three, Cardiff, have brought in six as well, including Wilfried Zaha on loan from Manchester United where he has not been able to break through since his transfer a year ago from Crystal Palace.

Kenwyn Jones, the Trinidad striker, has left Stoke for Cardiff in a swap deal that takes Peter Odemwingie in the other direction just four months after his transfer to the Welsh club from West Brom. Clubs threatened with relegation are giving it their best shot in terms of trying to stay up; after all, it is a business and if you go down you stand to lose bundles and bundles of money.

From what I saw when looking at the standings, from the tenth team down to last there is a nine-point difference so anybody who is consistent between now and the end of the season have a good chance of staying up. Three or four games undefeated can take a team a few places up the tables.

There will be some big games this weekend, including the North-East derby between Newcastle and Sunderland. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has been making some noise about Manchester City being a lucky side before his team’s trip to the Etihad Stadium on Monday night.

Mourinho talks a lot and sport is about opinion, although it does not mean his opinion is right. He tries to get inside the head of the opposing team, much in the same way that Sir Alex Ferguson used to do.

The other day Mourinho complained about West Ham being defensive, but Chelsea do it lots of times when they go away to play. I was over the moon with West Ham’s draw at Stamford Bridge, I thought it was a great result for us. It will take some luck to survive, but we just need to put in the effort. Hopefully it starts tomorrow.