Window Pain
This current transfer window has broken all records.
With a few days until the window closes, we’re already over £2.5bn in transfer fees spent so far.
And that’s just Wrexham.
It has been really crazy though. And there looks like there are some big deals being held until the final day of the window, so who knows where we’ll eventually end up?
The sale of Alexander Isak appears most likely, if Liverpool come back with a bigger bid or Newcastle cave in. Given they are down to Keiron Trippier at centre forward for the weekend, the latter doesn’t give the Geordies much time to find at least two strikers so I guess it’s down to the Reds to test their resolve.
There’s a certain irony that Newcastle now want Brentford’s Yoane Wissa to do exactly what Isak is doing and down tools to try to force a move. He’s already downed social media accounts, but may have to backtrack and re-install them. Yoanne, if you’re reading don’t bother with X. No one else does.
Newcastle have also reportedly bid £50m for Jorgen Strand Larsen at Wolves. One, they don’t see him as a direct replacement for Isak, and two, Wolves are adamant he’s not for sale…unless they offer £75m. As Jessie J once said. Think about that.
Other clubs are looking at where their gaps are before committing to their final purchases. So Manchester City are probably going to buy another goalkeeper after Saturday lunch-time, while Manchester United might already be looking for another new forward line.
There’s a striker shortage though as Nottingham Forest have gone for quantity again; bringing in about nineteen forwards alone. Maybe that’s what Nuno is really bothered about - keeping them all happy sitting on the bench. Or just fitting them on the bench. Nuno said things aren’t the same at the club, but the owner is falling out with literally everyone and they are purchasing players like they’re going out of fashion. Isn’t it exactly the same?
Rather than pity Aston Villa, who can’t afford to buy anyone, you end up envying them for being able to just focus on what they have. They’ll just have to rely on decent coaching, but even the decent coaches don’t seem to want that.
Villa did lose Jacob Ramsey though, which tells you everything you need to know about the way the PSR rules have shot football – and younger players - in the foot. A homegrown player who loves the club, the fans love him, and he’s been there all this life, but now has to leave so the club can potentially bring in someone else who’s roughly the same ability but for whom they can pay the fee using Klarna, and spread the fee and wages over seven years while they pocket all of any transfer money received in one go.
A Touch of Glass
It was always going to be a window for the ages though.
More than £400m had been spent before the window even opened. Which must be like those stores that open half an hour early on a Sunday, and you can browse, but not pay until eleven. Manchester City went early, but Chelsea weren’t far behind. Those two had the distraction of the World Club Cup as an excuse, and we had an unprecedented two windows around the new global tournament. It also allowed Chelsea to sign a striker just before the semi-final and play them - and they win it with two classy goals - in the game.
What next? Signings in the first-half of games that are brought on for the second? I bet that happens eventually. Hopefully I’ll be too old to care.
But with the financial constraints and window open until September 1, we’ve got a long way to go yet in this one. And while the clubs think the fans love it - and some do - is it really something we should be heralding?
Because I’m not sure it solves anywhere near as many problems as it creates.
Liverpool won at Newcastle on Monday because of a youth player as much as they did any of their highly valued new assets. Arsenal gave a debut to a 15-year-old against Leeds. The answers might already be there, but under the current climate, both will probably cash in on these ‘stars of the future’ in the next couple of years to make a quick twenty million.
And that’s just one area where fans get kicked where it hurts.
Do those same fans honesty like it when their clubs don’t have anything like a settled squad by the start of the season? Do they enjoy their best players not wanting to play as they agitate for a move to a rival? Do they appreciate it when their club sells a homegrown favourite just to make the owners a bit more money? How much fun is when a star player or captain leaves just before midnight on deadline day and they have no chance of filling the gap?
And all of the clubs are in debt. Many are losing significant amounts of money. That does not stop them spending record amounts in the [two] transfer windows though. It will, however, necessitate the need for an increase in ticket prices, more questionable sponsorship deals, increasing the volume of tourist fans, pricing younger ones out of the grounds, moving loyal fans who have sat in a place for most of their lives so they can sell their seats for more money and countless other decisions that will put the fans nearer the bottom of the priority list.
The same clubs who are spending too much on players will also say they have no money to invest in stadium improvements, introduce better ticketing systems, employ more staff, print a match programme or countless other things where the fan would feel valued and appreciated.
There is a lot of money in football. This transfer window(s) proves it. But another truism is that football will always spend money in the wrong places.
Wait. Wrong might be the wrong word. Football and its clubs are nothing without players, after all.
But then they said the same thing about fans. So let’s put it another way. They never spend as much as they could in the right places.
And it’ll take more than a few windows for that to change.
