Most Interesting Serie A Transfers of January 2013

The January transfer window closed last Thursday night with the usual fanfare. In Italy most teams have been pretty strapped for cash for a while, leaving them playing second fiddle to the English and Spanish top divisions, and now the new money upstarts of Eastern Europe. However, Italian teams still found enough money to make some intriguing moves in the transfer window, and here are some of the most interesting.

Mario Ballotelli to AC Milan

With Roberto Mancini finally giving up on trying to rein in the player he first discovered at Internazionale, Ballotelli has returned to Italy, to what is probably the club where he will have the best chance of finally achieving his potential. Ballotelli has always been a Milan fan, even when he was at Inter, and this should give him added motivation to want to do well. A potential front line of Ballotelli, El-Sharaawy, and the developing Mbaye Niang could be devastating, and I wouldn't bet against Ballotelli coming back to haunt Manchester City in the Champions League in the coming seasons.

Guiseppe Rossi to Fiorentina

Perhaps a gamble of a signing, Rossi has been out injured since October 2011, and isn't expected to be fit to play until the end of this season, or maybe even the beginning of next. In spite of this, if Fiorentina can get him fit again, they will have a very exciting player on their hands. In his last full season at Villareal in 2010-11, Rossi scored 32 goals in 56 appearances. He was also becoming first choice for Italy, whose manager, Cesare Prandelli had seen Rossi and Ballotelli as his front pairing. Fiorentina's gamble could pay off hugely if they can get him back to that kind of form, especially if they keep Stevan Jovetic, and manage to get them playing well together.

Mateo Kovacic to Internazionale

After finally ending the Wesley Sneijder saga with his transfer to Galatasaray, Inter have moved to replace him with a player who has been described as the new Luka Modric. Only 18 years old, so maybe one more for the future, Kovacic became the youngest goalscorer in the history of the Croatian top division at the age of 16 years and 198 days, was the youngest player ever to wear the Dinamo Zagreb captain's armband, and in scoring against Olympique Lyonnais in the Champions League group stage, became the second youngest ever scorer in the competition. It will be very interesting to see how he develops. 

Nicholas Anelka to Juventus

Juve have been searching for a striker for long time now. Despite their continuing dominance in the league, the one thing the team could be said to be missing is a 20+ goal a season striker. They were expected to make a big move in the summer but ended up having to settle for loaning Nicklas Bendtner, who now mostly warms their bench. With Fernando Llorente on his way on a free transfer in the summer, signing Anelka can possibly be seen as another attempt at a short term fix, although he will be out to prove he can still cut it at the top level.

Sickle Cell and Me

I was sick a couple of days ago, and I wanted to write about it because I've never really talked about it, but I've got an illness called Sickle Cell. Its not something I talk to people about much and I try not to think about it until I have to, when I get sick. Its not something you would notice about me if I didn't tell you, because most of the time its not an issue, but I've had it all my life.

Most people would never even have heard of it but Sickle Cell is a genetic illness that some people from certain regions of the world get. I'm not going to explain completely what it is here to save time, and because to be honest I'm not sure I understand it properly myself. There's a charity called the Sickle Cell Society that can explain it better than I ever could.

What it means for me is sometimes I get sick; maybe every few months I might start feeling a lot of pain (I mean a lot, it really, really hurts). A lot of the time this starts in the afternoon or evening, small at first, with only a bit of pain that I try to ignore and hope will go away. Sometimes it does go away, which is great! Sometimes it doesn't though and steadily just gets worse. When I was a kid, these episodes would lead to me having to go to hospital and stay there for anything from a few days to several weeks. Luckily I seem to be doing better now I'm older and a hospital visit hasn't happened for a long time.

It usually gets worse for me in the night when I'm trying to get to sleep. Because it hurts so much though, its really hard to get any sleep, and sometimes I end up not being able to sleep until the afternoon or evening of the next day. During those hours sleep is pretty much all I want, because I'm so tired and because it offers an escape from the pain.

Having Sickle Cell I get prescribed some pretty powerful pain pills for times like this and I find myself necking them to try and stop the pain. Sometimes they work first time, and sometimes I have to take a few doses over some hours. I can tell you there's nothing worse than having to wait another six hours to take more pills because the ones you just took haven't worked and you're still in a huge amount of pain. Luckily, one side effect of these pills is they make me feel sleepy, so that sometimes helps me get to sleep before the Sun comes up.

Getting sick usually means I have to stay in bed, and all I want to do is sleep. A lot of the time I can't even bring myself to eat, and I'll pretty much sleep all day and then all night as well, helped by the pain pills, or morphine if I'm in hospital. 

One thing about getting sick is it does give me some clarity, things that I would have been stressing over a couple of hours before don't seem that important when I just want to not be in pain any more. Also, perhaps because of all the pain pills, or maybe because of the euphoria of feeling better, I do feel amazingly zen when the pain starts to go away, like nothing that I've been stressing about could be that bad, which is one good side to the whole Sickle Cell thing.

So that's my relationship with Sickle Cell, its a part of me and my life, and its made me who I am today, but I don't let it define me.

6 Star Albums

Part 4: The Recession – Young Jeezy

The Recession is an album many British people would never have heard of before. Young Jeezy is a rapper who rarely appears in the British charts; at best many people might know him from collaborations with artists such as Usher on 'Love in This Club', and 'Hard' with Rihanna. However, this just means that many people are missing out on one of the best rappers around, and this album is his masterpiece.

The first song, the title track 'The Recession', captures the essence of the album. An intro of voices speak about the financial crisis then drop into one of the huge beats that is Young Jeezy's trademark. Using this beat Jeezy paints a portrait of the difficulties of trying to make ends meet, and as in much of his best work, blends dopeboy swagger with discussion of the worries of trying to make it from day to day. 

The next two songs 'Welcome Back' and 'By the Way' are standard street bangers, with Jeezy in thug mode talking about money and guns. However, track four, 'Crazy World', is where the album truly starts to get going. Another song that fits with the theme of struggling, it has a sense of frustration seen in the refrain "God damn another trap, I think Bush is trying to punish us", and lines such as "I want a new Bentley, my auntie need a kidney, and if I let her pass her children never will forgive me" mix rap aspiration with worries recognisable to anyone who's ever felt the weight of responsibility on their shoulders, in a bouncy, fast-paced song. The next track 'What They Want' is another bouncy track that I dare you to be able to stop yourself from moving to, as Jeezy slickly uses sport metaphors to describe his hustle game. Track six, 'Amazin', is another street anthem, with Jeezy flowing over a beat with awesome, almost subsonic bass. Things then slow down slightly with Track seven, 'Hustlaz Ambition', a more introspective song that again ties into the theme of the struggle, and sees Jeezy express his determination to be able to provide for his family and be a success.

The best songs on The Recession can be divided into two categories. In the first category are the fast paced street anthems such as 'Crazy World', 'What They Want', and 'Amazin'. The second category includes slower songs such as 'Hustlaz Ambition', track nine 'Don't Know You', track 12 'Vacation', and track 15 'Don't Do It'. These are songs where Young Jeezy is more thoughtful, and talks more about the darker side of hustling.

Other notable tracks on The Recession are 'Circulate', a song suited to these times of austerity and government cuts, sampling a Billy Paul song of the same name that is also well worth a listen. Also great are 'My President' featuring Nas, an ode to Barack Obama, who was to be elected soon after the album was released, and 'Put On', an anthem that was adopted by several sports teams to warm up crowds before games because of its riotous and infectious nature.

The Recession is a relatively unknown gem; an album that passed many people by, but that has all the things I love about hip-hop. It manages to be both fun and thoughtful,  and as a package of songs, works as well as any album I've ever heard, with its consistent themes, and flow from one track to the next. That's why its a 6 star album and one of my favourite albums ever.