Most bizarre January transfer deadline day moments: Harry Redknapp pushing push Benjani onto a plane, Peter Odemwingie’s drive to QPR and Arsenal’s Kim Kallstrom injury woes

The January transfer window is only open for one more week and clubs across Europe are scrambling to make their final moves in the market.

With a number of contracts of huge stars coming to an end at their clubs – including Kylian Mbappe and Paul Pogba – there could be some huge agreements made this winter.

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Newcastle have brought in Kieran Trippier from Atletico Madrid for £12million and Chris Wood from relegation rivals Burnley.

Elsewhere, Aston Villa have also been busy, securing the signings of Philippe Countinho from Barcelona and Lucas Digne from Everton.

Historically, the January window has seen plenty of panic buying from clubs who are desperate to turn around their faltering season.

With that in mind, previous transfers this month have thrown up some bizarre moments!

Here, talkSPORT.com takes a look at five of the weirdest…

Benjani Mwaruwari

The Zimbabwe international’s Man City move failed to take place on deadline day 2008 because he fell asleep when he was at the airport.

Benjani ultimately missed two planes to make it to the Etihad before finally undergoing his medical 45 minutes before the deadline.

“In his own inevitable, wonderful way – and we all love Benji so much – he falls asleep at the airport and misses two planes,” Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie said in The Times.

“You couldn’t write the script. The next plane at 7 o’clock got cancelled and the 8.30 was delayed. It just made the whole situation a fiasco.”

Harry Redknapp revealed the whole story to talkSPORT back in 2018…

Peter Odemwingie

The Nigerian international’s decision to drive to Loftus Road on transfer deadline day to try and force through a move to QPR remains legendary.

Odemwingie made the 125-mile trip from London to the Midlands as he looked to quit West Brom and was infamously interviewed in the car-park after being denied entry to the stadium after both clubs failed to agree a fee.

He told Sky Sports in 2018: “Everything seemed agreed, but actually I didn’t know that one of the terms was that they [West Brom] were getting [Junior] Hoilett and [if I had known that] I would have never driven to London.

“Why would I have driven to London in bad weather? It was dark already, it was winter and I had just had a new born, who was one week old.”

Kim Kallstrom

Arsene Wenger’s unusual tactic in 2014 was to replace one injured star with another injured player.

The Arsenal boss was scrambling for a short-term replacement for Aaron Ramsey after the Welshman picked up an issue that would see him sidelined.

Wenger landed on Kallstrom, but only discovered the Sweden star was carrying a back injury from playing beach football during his medical.

Despite that, Kallstrom was still signed by Arsenal and only made four appearances on loan from Spartak Moscow.

Wenger remarked a week after the deal: “I wouldn’t have signed him if we had another two or three days, but it was on Friday at 5pm.”

Julien Faubert

Real Madrid offered up one of the most peculiar deadline day deals in recent memory when they made the Frenchman a Galactico in 2009.

Faubert hadn’t been pulling up any trees during his previous 18 months at West Ham when the LaLiga giants made a shock approach to sign him.

Madrid later secured a £1.5m loan for Faubert until the end of the season with an option to buy – which they unsurprisingly didn’t opt to take up.

During his time at the Bernabeu, Faubert featured only twice, missed training after wrongly believing he had a day off and infamously appeared to fall asleep during a game against Villarreal.

The man himself told the Athletic in 2020: “When I was on the bench I closed my eyes for about 30 seconds and they thought I was p****d off because I wasn’t playing and they said, “OK, this guy is sleeping.”

Scott Bain

When else but transfer deadline day would you see a player sign for a club, wearing the colours of the team he’s already on loan at from his parent club?

Well that’s what happened to goalkeeper Bain, who was left with no other option but to wear his Hibernian tracksuit to sign for Celtic.

The Scot had only joined Hibbs on loan from Dundee at the beginning of January only for the deal to be cancelled on deadline day without him playing a game to allow him to seal a last-minute switch to Celtic Park.