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Another transfer window is officially in the books. Below, theScore picks out the biggest winners and losers from a muted January signing period.

Winners: Jadon Sancho and Kalvin Phillips

Nobody needed a move more desperately than these two.

An increasingly bitter – and alarmingly public – feud with headstrong manager Erik ten Hag turned Sancho’s Manchester United spell into a nightmare. The English winger, who joined the club for €85 million, had been frozen out of the squad since August before sealing a merciful return to Borussia Dortmund on loan. The beaming smile that accompanied his official unveiling by Dortmund said it all. Sancho, for the first time in months, was happy. He was “home,” surrounded by familiar faces and people who have seen him at his very best, when he was one of the most electrifying young players in world football. He’s made an immediate impact at Dortmund, shaking off the rust after nearly four months on the shelf to instantly become a key player for Edin Terzic.

His compatriot, and fellow Euro 2024 hopeful, was in a similar boat. Phillips’ 2022 transfer to Manchester City was, in no uncertain terms, a disaster. He started just two Premier League matches in 18 months under Pep Guardiola, and new midfield arrivals made any prospect of increased playing time highly unlikely. England manager Gareth Southgate still believes in his abilities, but continuing to rot on the City bench was obviously detrimental to his hopes of playing any role at this summer’s tournament. Along came West Ham United to rescue him. David Moyes will give the 28-year-old every opportunity to play and showcase, for Southgate and any other interested parties, that he’s still capable of performing at a high level.

Loser: Jordan Henderson

Tail tucked firmly between his legs, Henderson is back in Europe.

By any possible metric, his surprising decision to sign for Al-Ettifaq in the summer backfired spectacularly. Just six months, and a measly 17 appearances, after claiming he was in the Middle East “to stay” and help the Saudi Pro League grow, he hightailed it to Ajax. His family apparently had reservations about his move to the Middle East to begin with, but he charged forward anyway, and, after being one of the sport’s most prominent supporters of the LGBTQ+ community during his time at Liverpool, he torpedoed the goodwill he had built.

And for what?

The midfielder took a significant pay cut to terminate his Al-Ettifaq contract and join the struggling Dutch giants. Because he reportedly backloaded a large amount of his salary, he didn’t even cash in like some of his peers, which always seemed to be the sole motivation in the first place.

Winners: Atletico Madrid

Half of Europe was tracking Arthur Vermeeren during the January window, with some of the continent’s top sides trying to formulate ways to sign the ascendant 18-year-old either immediately or, more likely, in the summer. In the end, Atletico Madrid beat them all to the punch, landing the prodigious midfielder for what looks like a very modest fee; Vermeeren will reportedly cost €18 million up front, with Royal Antwerp potentially collecting an additional €5 million in bonuses.

Diego Simeone has been craving a deep-lying player who can help rejuvenate his midfield, and the blossoming Belgian, already with extensive first-team experience at Antwerp despite his youth, fits that bill. Vermeeren was handed the start at the first opportunity after joining Atletico, showing that Simeone has no qualms about throwing him into the fire right away. The manager, and the club, think he’s ready right now. While other young players have faltered in the past at Atletico, their newest gem looks set to thrive.

Losers: Napoli

When navigated properly, the January transfer window can be a turning point in a club’s season. With some nimble moves, teams can either put themselves over the top and ignite a push for silverware or, if they’re struggling, get a timely boost and get back on track.

That’s precisely what Napoli needed. They didn’t get it.

The rudderless Serie A champions, 22 points off the summit this season, failed to land top target Lazar Samardzic, and a potential deal for solid defender Nehuen Perez never materialized. Cyril Ngonge is an intriguing addition up front, but their other signings all come with questions: Leander Dendoncker and Pasquale Mazzocchi, who was sent off on his debut, are little more than depth pieces that don’t move the needle; Hamed Traore still has potential, but he’s recovering from malaria and may not play much of a role at all this season. Worst of all, their best player, Victor Osimhen, appeared to confirm that he’s already planning his eventual exit. Not ideal.

Winners: Benfica

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Benfica have made a very profitable habit out of scouring the South American market for young talent, signing some of the continent’s most promising players for modest sums, and then flipping them for extravagant fees to clubs across Europe. See: Fernandez, Enzo. Sticking with a similar formula, the Portuguese outfit landed Brazilian striker Marcos Leonardo from Santos and Argentinean winger Benjamin Rollheiser from Estudiantes de La Plata in January. They paid under €30 million combined for the two; the latter arrived on an initial loan that will become permanent in the summer.

Don’t be surprised if one, or both, are on the move to one of Europe’s leading sides in the very near future. Leonardo, in particular, will be in high demand if his scoring exploits from Brazil translate to Europe, with Benfica setting his release clause at €150 million in anticipation of the phone ringing. Perhaps striker-needy Chelsea will come calling again in the summer?

The South American pipeline, in general, came to the fore in January – Paris Saint-Germain spent a combined €40 million to acquire Lucas Beraldo and Gabriel Moscardo from Sao Paulo and Corinthians, respectively – but few teams operate as skillfully as Benfica in that area.

Loser: Karim Benzema

In what’s quickly becoming a familiar refrain among players who moved to Saudi Arabia in search of bottomless riches, Benzema made his displeasure with his situation at Al-Ittihad very clear. The former Ballon d’Or winner, the Saudi Pro League’s prized summer signing, reportedly went AWOL and returned to Jeddah from the league’s midseason break 17 days late, apparently in the hopes of engineering a transfer back to Europe.

There were rumblings of interest from Lyon, his former team, and Chelsea. Neither amounted to much at all. Al-Ittihad remained adamant that the unsettled striker wouldn’t be sold, which was apparently the impetus for a tense meeting with manager Marcelo Gallardo. And, after all that, here we are. Benzema, unlike Henderson, didn’t get his move. Al-Ittihad retained their biggest star, but his mood and outlook are unlikely to change overnight, if at all. The player is unhappy, the club has a fractured relationship to try and mend, and the league, after wooing so many high-profile names just six months ago, has to try and convince onlookers that, actually, everything is fine and the project remains on course. There are no winners here.

The NFL’s rate of noncontact lower-extremity injuries was nearly the same on synthetic and natural turf in 2023, league officials told ESPN, the second time in three years those trend lines have essentially intersected.

The data, collected via a joint NFL/NFL Players Association committee, helps inform the ongoing debate over the safety of playing surfaces at the NFL’s 30 stadiums.

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president for communications, public affairs and policy, said the similar rates point to a “need to look at all surfaces” for ways to improve. NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell last fall called on all teams to convert to grass fields after New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers tore his left Achilles tendon on MetLife Stadium’s synthetic turf. In a statement released to ESPN this week, the union said the numbers were close in 2023 only because injuries on grass fields increased.

“As we have said repeatedly,” the statement read, “injury data in a one-year time capsule does not account for what we have known since we started tracking these injuries: that a well-maintained, consistent grass surface is still simply safer for players than any synthetic field. The story of last year’s injury data is that, unfortunately, injury rates on grass have increased from last year.

“The data cannot, however, account for what players have shared with the NFL for years: that we feel much worse after playing on synthetic surfaces and overwhelmingly prefer consistent, high-quality grass fields.

“This year’s injury data also does not explain how quick they are to flip NFL stadium surfaces from bad synthetic to better grass for international soccer friendlies and tournaments.”

The NFL/NFLPA committee defines injuries that could be attributed to the playing surface as those that occur in the lower extremities, without contact from another player, and are serious enough to force missed games. They represent about one-third of all NFL injuries and about half of all lower-extremity injuries, according to Dr. Mackenzie Herzog, an epidemiologist at IQVIA and an adviser to the NFL and NFLPA.

In 2023, the incidence rate (per 100 plays) for such injuries was 0.001 higher on synthetic turf (0.043) compared with natural (0.042). That represented a total of six to eight injuries over the course of the 17-week season, Herzog said, making the rates “virtually identical.” There was a similar difference between the rates in 2021.

In 2022, the rate for synthetic turf was 0.048 and the rate for natural was 0.035.

“Sometimes the line for synthetic injuries goes up, and sometimes it goes down,” the NFL’s Miller said, “and the same for the natural turf line. We need to have a better appreciation for why that could be over time so that both lines are heading in the same direction, and both of them are going down.”

After the uproar over Rodgers’ injury, 10 other NFL players suffered Achilles tears during regular-season games. There were another 12 during preseason games and practices, and the total of 23 was in line with previous seasons. According to NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s number of Achilles injuries has been between 20 and 22 since the league moved to a 17-game regular season.

“We did not see an epidemic of Achilles injuries this year,” Sills said.

Several teams replaced a type of synthetic turf called “slit film” after the 2022 season, noting that it had produced higher injury rates than other forms of turf and grass. Two others will do so after the 2023 season, leaving Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium as the only facility without plans to replace slit-film turf before the 2024 season.

Despite the data, and as the NFLPA said in its statement, many players say they feel less sore after games on grass than they do after playing on turf. Sills and Miller said this week that the NFL/NFLPA committee has several research initiatives underway to address surface conditions, including the possibility of growing grass for indoor stadiums.

“We think that’s important work,” Sills said. “It has not been done to the level that we think would withstand the kind of forces that NFL players put on those fields right now, but that is a very active research stream as well.

In the meantime, the committee is researching the impact of establishing a consistent set of turf management and style protocols to reduce the adjustments players must make from stadium to stadium.

“We think that’s going to be an important driver in the reduction of injuries,” Sills said.

Independent of the playing surface, the NFL experienced an unquestioned decrease in serious injuries during the 2023 season, Miller said. Missed games due to all injuries were down by about 700 from 2022, largely because of a drop in lower-extremity injuries.

The NFL believes its intervention efforts — working with team medical and coaching staffs in the early weeks of spring training on ways to manage the “ramp-up” period and reduce training camp lower-extremity injuries — are paying off.

The NFL’s numbers show a 29% reduction in lower-extremity injuries during training camp and a 50% reduction in recurrence of those injuries throughout the year. Herzog said the number of regular-season games missed due to lower-extremity strains — which represent the league’s No. 1 injury burden — was down 24% from the previous two years.

“We’ve really focused on that — made it an offseason priority to talk with coaches, strength coaches, performance directors about trends and observations, particularly on how we bring players back,” Sills said. “We’ve seen the first two weeks of training camp really provide an opportunity to reduce strains.”

The NFL also said ACL injuries were down in 2023. It registered 52 ACL injuries across the preseason and regular-season games and practices, which the league said is down 24% from the average of the previous two seasons.

Meanwhile, concussion numbers were relatively stable. The NFL had 219 concussions across the preseason and regular-season games and practices, up from 213 in 2022.

The NFL did accomplish its goal of reducing concussions on kickoffs, with the number dropping from 20 in 2022 to eight in 2023, but Miller said that’s a direct result of fewer kicks being returned because of a rule change that spotted fair catches at the 25-yard line. The concussion rate on returned kickoffs, Sills said, remained the same as in previous years.

Miller said the competition committee plans to examine the kickoff again this offseason with the goal of keeping the play in the game but making it safer. He said the committee has studied the XFL rule and will continue to look for ways to alter the play to make it safer without making it go away.