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On Monday, January 31, the annual winter transfer window has officially closed.

There will be no more possibilities for the teams to buy or sell players, except for free agents. Who’s in now, is in until the end of the season.

Some general managers waited up until the very last available hours to secure their deals — out of strategy, to get a better price, but, in many cases, out of desperation, attempting to find the right player to bet on and turn the season upside down.1

The expenses registered in the January transfer window are usually not quite significant when compared to the much longer summer transfer window.

However, despite the pandemic, this past month was calculated to have been one of the most profitable, in terms of money invested, ever.

An interesting data shows how over half of the money spent in the Premier League (€335 million) came from the five clubs at the bottom of the League: Everton, Norwich, Newcastle, Watford, and Burnley.

The Magpies, in particular, after having recently been acquired by a consortium made up of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, RB Sports & Media, and PCP Capital Partners, and becoming, therefore, the richest club in the world, invested over €100 million, signing Bruno Guimaraes, Chris Wood, Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn and Matt Targett.

The passage of Serbian striker Dusan Vlahovic from Fiorentina to Juventus, for a total of €75 million, was the most expensive deal of the window, followed by Barcelona's signing of Ferran Torres from Manchester City €65.

At the very last minute, Barcelona reinforced its offensive potential even more, with the free signing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, after terminating his contract with Arsenal.

Here, the ideal starting XI, featuring the biggest transfers of the just concluded window: