January is nearly always an anti climatic transfer window. The best players simply do not move mid season. Yes of course there are exceptions, Arshavin comes to mind as one, but there have to be compelling reasons why a team gives up a player mid season. Sometimes it is financial as we are seeing with Portsmouth. Occasionally it is a breakdown between a manager and a player. This year with it being a World Cup year I was hopeful that there would be more movement than normal. Internationals who want to be in South Africa need to play every game to maintain their fitness and show their National team boss that they should be in the squad.

Regardless of the ins and outs of Robinho leaving part of it is very much the need for him to play each game for the next six months. Patrick Vieira has joined City for similar reasons.

It's for this reason that I was hopeful regarding the possible transfer of Fernando Gago who has fallen out of the first team at Real Madrid. What surprises me is that all of the rumour and conjecture has been about City buying the player and Real Madrid not really wanting to sell. In the circumstances surely a loan would be the best of all worlds? Gago gets the regular football he needs prior to the World Cup, City get a very nice player and Real Madrid get to keep him long term.

It also, frankly, gives the Argentinian the opportunity to see how he likes playing for City which might lead to a transfer in the summer. I don't see any negatives to the arrangement. Everyone gets what they want in the short term and then the subject can be broached again in the Summer.

Another player heavily linked with the club is Middlesbrough's Adam Johnson who is out of contract in the Summer. I don't really gets this one. He's a very good player but City don't really need another left winger and while the England U-21 international occasionally plays on the right wing I'm not a fan of this, see Petrov Martin.

Fulham's Chris Smalling has moved to United and it's easy to sneer about over priced and desperate. However I remember Ashley Young moving in a January transfer window for a silly sum and that turned out well. So let's withhold judgment on that one.

City remain exactly where they were on January 1st. Patrick Vieira does not a transfer window make. City need a Left Back, a play maker and a striker at a minimum. The emergence of Boyata has been a pleasant surprise but City need a great central defender if not now then in the Summer.

City are close. The apparent reluctance to pull the trigger on what seem like "obvious" weaknesses is baffling.