Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
I went shopping today. I bought 150 steaks, 200 eggs, enough cornflakes to swim in and enough milk to drown in. I bought half a vineyard of red wine, a circle of cheese as big as a tractor wheel and a box of ice-cream large enough to sink a ship. I also picked up 40 paperback books and a new pair of swimming shorts for my holiday. Had to get it all in by the end of January because after that I’m not allowed back into the shops until June. Stupid, isn’t it? Still, you’ve got to be prepared. And that ice-cream is raspberry ripple flavour, so everyone’s a winner.
No industry in the world would ever dream of banning trade, so why does it happen in football? I’ve racked my brains while thinking about this column and I genuinely can’t think of a positive aspect of these transfer windows. Poor Kevin Keegan has barely learnt the names of his players and already he has to rush down to the shops to buy new ones. It’s Keegan for God’s sake, he’s spontaneous enough as it is, we don’t need to force the issue. He’s going to hit the transfer market like a dog in a sausage factory. He’ll be like my mum at the January sales. He’ll walk into Mike Ashley’s office laden with carrier bags saying, “I picked up a lovely Defoe for just a fraction of the usual price, plus a nice little Wright-Phillips that was on offer and came with a free Wayne Bridge! It did all cost £30m, but it was half-price!”
Some managers buy too many players, petrified that an injury crisis will cost them their jobs. Chelsea brought in Tal Ben Haim, Steve Sidwell and Claudio Pizzaro in the summer, not to improve their squad, but to protect it. It worked out fine for Chelsea but what about Bolton and Reading? They lost key players, all tempted into reserve team football by the slim prospect of a game or two during the African Nations. They would never have been signed if it hadn’t have been for the window’s restrictions.
I spoke to the assistant manager at a lower league side recently and he said that this time of year was a nightmare. After months of not being able to improve your team, you finally get a chance to bring in reinforcements, but the players are linked like the English housing market. No-one wants to sell before they buy, so if you want to buy a striker, you have to wait until the selling club have found a replacement for him. Usually they’ve already identified their new man, it’s just that they’re waiting for another club to get a move on and buy someone as well. It all gets stacked up like dominoes leading either to a rush of signatures on Jauary 31 or, when one link falls, a lot of unhappy managers.
I’m loathe to every express any sympathy to football agents, but they have a horrible time of it as well. They spend four months of the year dormant and then spend Janaury in a constant state of panic, snorting coffee beans in a desperate bid to go a month without sleep.
It’s sucked all the fun out of the transfer market. I’ll never forget the shock of Keegan’s decision to sell Andy Cole to Manchester United. It came out of nowhere, one gloomy evening and it was the only thing people talked about for weeks afterwards. You need surprises like that in football. These days, the media has got months to find out what every team needs and who their most likely targets are. I haven’t seen a single transfer yet that’s made me spill my tea down my shirt.
Steve Coppell hit out at the concept of a transfer window at the beginning of the month and he hinted that it might actually be illegal. I’m no expert on these things, but I’m fairly sure that it’s a restriction of trade which, as the Bosman Ruling proved, is something that tends to upset the politicians round here.
The old rules were absolutely fine. The only panic came at the end of March when the deadline had to come down to prevent shady end-of-season dealings. For the rest of the season, clubs were free to trade when and where they liked. It’s time for the football industry to stand up and take a sledgehammer to the transfer window. Let’s just keep it open.
No industry in the world would ever dream of banning trade, so why does it happen in football? I’ve racked my brains while thinking about this column and I genuinely can’t think of a positive aspect of these transfer windows. Poor Kevin Keegan has barely learnt the names of his players and already he has to rush down to the shops to buy new ones. It’s Keegan for God’s sake, he’s spontaneous enough as it is, we don’t need to force the issue. He’s going to hit the transfer market like a dog in a sausage factory. He’ll be like my mum at the January sales. He’ll walk into Mike Ashley’s office laden with carrier bags saying, “I picked up a lovely Defoe for just a fraction of the usual price, plus a nice little Wright-Phillips that was on offer and came with a free Wayne Bridge! It did all cost £30m, but it was half-price!”
Some managers buy too many players, petrified that an injury crisis will cost them their jobs. Chelsea brought in Tal Ben Haim, Steve Sidwell and Claudio Pizzaro in the summer, not to improve their squad, but to protect it. It worked out fine for Chelsea but what about Bolton and Reading? They lost key players, all tempted into reserve team football by the slim prospect of a game or two during the African Nations. They would never have been signed if it hadn’t have been for the window’s restrictions.
I spoke to the assistant manager at a lower league side recently and he said that this time of year was a nightmare. After months of not being able to improve your team, you finally get a chance to bring in reinforcements, but the players are linked like the English housing market. No-one wants to sell before they buy, so if you want to buy a striker, you have to wait until the selling club have found a replacement for him. Usually they’ve already identified their new man, it’s just that they’re waiting for another club to get a move on and buy someone as well. It all gets stacked up like dominoes leading either to a rush of signatures on Jauary 31 or, when one link falls, a lot of unhappy managers.
I’m loathe to every express any sympathy to football agents, but they have a horrible time of it as well. They spend four months of the year dormant and then spend Janaury in a constant state of panic, snorting coffee beans in a desperate bid to go a month without sleep.
It’s sucked all the fun out of the transfer market. I’ll never forget the shock of Keegan’s decision to sell Andy Cole to Manchester United. It came out of nowhere, one gloomy evening and it was the only thing people talked about for weeks afterwards. You need surprises like that in football. These days, the media has got months to find out what every team needs and who their most likely targets are. I haven’t seen a single transfer yet that’s made me spill my tea down my shirt.
Steve Coppell hit out at the concept of a transfer window at the beginning of the month and he hinted that it might actually be illegal. I’m no expert on these things, but I’m fairly sure that it’s a restriction of trade which, as the Bosman Ruling proved, is something that tends to upset the politicians round here.
The old rules were absolutely fine. The only panic came at the end of March when the deadline had to come down to prevent shady end-of-season dealings. For the rest of the season, clubs were free to trade when and where they liked. It’s time for the football industry to stand up and take a sledgehammer to the transfer window. Let’s just keep it open.