A hectic 48 hours has seen two players arrive and two leave from Oakwell, after the arrival of Ethan Pinnock and the departures of Marc Roberts and Josh Scowen were followed by the eye catching signing of defender Zeki Fryers from Crystal Palace.
The 24 year old left back has signed a three year contract after arriving on a free transfer and it is believed the former England U16, U17 and U19 international has taken a major pay cut to drop down to the Championship with it being reported he was on around £18,000 a week at Selhurst Park.
It is arguably the most high profile capture for The Reds so far this summer as Fryers can count some of the best clubs in the country amongst his former employers. Full name Ezekiel Fryers, the Manchester born youngster started his career at Old Trafford and made his senior debut in September 2011 in a 3-0 League Cup victory over Leeds- playing the full 90 minutes. He would go on to make two more League Cup appearances under Sir Alex Ferguson plus two substitute Premier League appearances- in a 4-1 win over Wolves and 5-0 win over Wigan in December 2011- whilst prior to this he made his Champions League bow as an 89th minute substitute in a 2-0 victory over Otelul Galati.
However by the end of the 2011-2012 campaign, Fryers relationship with Ferguson had turned sour and he spent the summer of 2012 training with Tottenham Hotspur but Spurs and United could not agree a compensation package so Fryers eventually moved to Belgium to sign for Standard Liege, signing for two years.
By the November Fryers informed his agent he was homesick, following the sacking of Liege manager Ron Jans and he got his move to Tottenham in the January 2013 transfer window and was placed straight into their development squad for the remainder of the season.
Fryers made his Tottenham bow in the Europa League Play-Offs in August 2013 as a 56th minute substitute. He played four more Europa League games and one League Cup match before his Premier League introduction in December 2013- a 5-0 defeat to Liverpool.
Fryers would appear in another six Premier League matches and two Europa League but with opportunities limited he signed for Crystal Palace in September 2014 for an undisclosed fee.
He appeared 14 times for the Eagles (nine in the Premier League) however Palace lost nine of those matches and whilst at Selhurst Park he had loan spells with Rotherham (10 appearances) and Ipswich (3 appearances) His last outing for any side was in January as a 76th minute substitute in Palace’s 3-0 FA Cup defeat to Manchester City.