The January window runs from New Year’s Day to February 2, closing 7:00pm GMT to be exact. That’s five weeks that give clubs room to maneuver. A buyer can move early, force a decision, and still have time to pivot. A seller can hold out and decide if the offer is worth the midseason disruption.
Yet, Chelsea tells you what January usually looks like: patience. The club is reportedly holding midfield spending for summer, even though Maresca has leaned hard on Caicedo and Fernandez all season. Both cost north of $125 million. Paying that again for a backup now only makes sense if things go sideways.
The biggest January moves tend to come from contract triggers and release clauses and impatience, per say. Some clubs believe the cost of waiting outweighs the cost of acting. Let’s explore which players may be under the microscope, even if they’re tied down for now.
Players on the radar
Antoine Semenyo is tied to a release clause worth about $85 million at Bournemouth—active at the start of the window and not expected to run all month. Clauses like that are rare in England for a reason. They turn a negotiation into a deadline. Once the number is public, every rival knows exactly what it takes.
Marc Guehi’s contract timeline has taken Crystal Palace into the danger zone. He’s eligible to agree a pre-contract with a foreign club from January 1 ahead of a possible free move in the summer. That changes the power dynamic overnight. Palace can still hold firm, but the closer a player gets to the exit without a renewal, the harder it becomes to demand a premium.
Bruno Fernandes acknowledged he was hurt after learning Manchester United was willing to entertain a Saudi approach last summer. The reported offer sat around $134 million. Even if nothing happens in January, a player speaking openly about his standing at the club is never a neutral event. It becomes part of the market. It invites conversations and forces United to decide whether keeping him is a sporting choice, a financial choice, or both.
Ivan Toney is straightforward: the mechanics are simple and the demand is real. Premier League clubs have already enquired about a return after his move to Saudi Arabia. The obstacles are the usual ones—contract terms, salary, and whether his current club is willing to cooperate. January strikers are expensive because sellers don’t want to fix another club’s season, and buyers don’t want to wait if their points are bleeding away now.
Harry Kane’s situation is less about completing a deal by February 2 and more about teeing one up.
The striker’s Bayern Munich contract reportedly contains a release clause mechanism that can be activated before the end of January to open the door to a summer move. That kind of clause doesn’t guarantee anything, but it does create a formal decision point. If Kane is going to shape the next stage of his career like a glorious return to Tottenham, the paperwork starts in January, not June.
Mohamed Salah is the one that makes this window feel heavier than most. His public comments about his relationship with Liverpool’s manager—and his subsequent omission from a Champions League match—have turned a contract situation into a live sporting issue. Salah is also AFCON-bound, with the tournament ending mid-January. The Egyptian will let his agent do all the talking in the interim.
Liverpool will navigate a crucial stretch without him while internal discussions continue. If the relationship stabilizes, January becomes background noise and the bigger question shifts to summer. If it doesn’t, the market will treat this month as the beginning of the end.
