Man United’s Juan Mata signing tops Twitter chart with 10m mentions as January transfer window closes

More than 1.9 million tweets were sent about transfer rumours and news on Deadline Day (31 January) with the most buzz circulating around former Chelsea player Juan Mata’s move to Manchester United, according to Twitter. The Spanish player, who was signed by Manchester United for £37.1m, generated more than ten million mentions on Twitter throughout the January football transfer window, which closed last Friday. This topped the 8.4m mentions generated by Gareth Bale’s move to Real Madrid in the summer transfer window, and the 4.3m mentions of Arsenal’s signing of striker Mesut Ozil during the same period. Twitter has become a core hub for the football fans, players and journalists to share updates and news, and keep abreast of changes on Deadline say, with the hashtags #DeadlineDay and #TransferDeadlineDay used more than 250,000 times, according to the microblogging site. The biggest deal of the day in terms of money spent cam when Chelsea FC announced on Twitter its signing of centre-back Kurt Zouma for £12m. Arsenal is the most-followed UK club on Twitter, having recently reached 3.4 million followers, although the gap is closing with Chelsea FC which has 3.3 million followers. Since the last deadline day in September 2013, Manchester United has overtaken Manchester City to become Manchester’s most-followed club. In fact, with the former netting a total of more than 1.8 million followers.

Well the highlight of that transfer window was Juan Mata coming to Man United #DeadlineDay #bbcfootball #MUFC #skydeadlineday

— Paul Vincent Willis (@1PAUL_WILLIS) January 31, 2014

I'd say juan mata is a very successful transfer window #mufc #DeadlineDay

— lloyd mapes (@mapes86) January 31, 2014

Tony Cottee on #DeadlineDay @SkySportsNews "Juan Mata is the biggest signing of this window" You can't buy insight like that!

— Tom Burke (@tomburke999) January 31, 2014