CREDIT: ULTRASLANSI
Mohamed Salah is now sent on loan to Fiorentina after failing to impress playing for Chelsea.

Another winter transfer period has come and gone in the Premier League, and it may have been one of the most boring January windows in recent memory.

This is the period of time that saw the arrivals of Luis Suarez at Anfield three years ago, on the back on the infamous transfer of Fernando Torres to Chelsea. Since then, supporters have come to expect that some big, surprising moves are on the cards for the winter period, and they have often been rewarded.

Conversely, this season’s window had been full of the Premier League’s managers claiming that they will not be making moves during the winter, as there is no need to “panic buy” this year.

Hearing that would be a surprise to nobody, as that is the rhetoric that most managers use every year, essentially becoming a media cliché, repeated until their team eventually does make a move and brings in a player.

This year, however, when the words left the mouths of managers such as Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers, they were in fact being straight with the media, as neither of the big teams in red brought in any new personnel over the winter.

The two biggest moves – perhaps unsurprisingly – were from the two richest clubs at the top of the table. Each club brought in a player that is likely to become involved in the first team right away.

Starting at the top, Chelsea made several moves during the last month, primarily in the outgoing category, as two players headed for the exit door at Stamford Bridge – André Schürrle and Mohamed Salah.

Schürrle – a World Cup winning attacker – returned to his native Germany to ply his trade with VFL Wolfsburg after failing to become a regular fixture of the Chelsea team.

Salah – a speedy Egyptian international – failed to make any impression at the club and has been sent on loan to Fiorentina, as part of the deal that has seen highly rated Colombian winger Juan Cuadrado arrive in England.

They join assist leader from the last summer’s World Cup, Cuadrado, comes to England with a healthy return of 20 goals in 85 league appearances in Italy. He’s also got a reputation for a fierce cross into the box that should aid the club in their push for the title.

Lurking just under Chelsea, Manchester City was quieter in the window but managed a significant coup in the signing of Swansea City’s Ivorian international Wilfried Bony. Some readers will recognize him as one of my “ones to watch” when he first arrived on the scene.

Pillaging nine goals in the first half of the season – and a healthy 16 last year – the young man earned a spot on the richest club in the country, whose owners have pegged him as the man to help them catch Chelsea in the title race.

There were some other notable transfers into England last month. One is Eljro Elia to high flying Southampton, a Dutch international whose natural skill has been overshadowed by his controversial antics on social media while playing in Germany and Italy over the last two seasons.