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This summer’s transfer window has been more like a soap opera. We have witnessed a team paying nearly £200million for a single player while others are refusing to play for their employers, throwing in transfer requests and demanding an immediate release from their current clubs.
From the outside looking in, this all sounds like players have all the power. This is far from reality - for there has been an interesting twist in the transfer saga.
Southampton, who are renowned for selling their top talent, are refusing to do business with any other club wanting the services of their star player Virgil van Dijk.
Arsenal, despite an offer of £60m, still refuse to sell Alexis Sanchez despite the player openly stating his unhappiness and his desire to leave with just a single year left on his contract.
Liverpool are another club unwilling to sell their top player even though Barcelona were reported to offer in excess of £130m for Philippe Coutinho.
The list goes on and on. It is just one of the crazy and mind-boggling situations that clubs and players seem to have to face.
Yet it is interesting that clubs are now starting to play hard ball. On the one hand they are refusing to budge when their star players want away, on the other they are ruthless when they decide a player is no longer part of their plans. In that case you can be out of the door in minutes.
I’ve had first-hand experience of this situation. My transfer from Derby County to Celtic back in 2011 was far from normal. On the day of the transfer I had no idea what was in store. I trained in the morning as normal and once completed was called into the chairman’s office.
I sat down hoping a new contract was about to be offered but he came straight out and told me that they had accepted a bid from Celtic and I was ‘free to go’.
To say that was unexpected would be an understatement. I went back into the changing room to clear out my locker. My head was all over the place, we had a young family and my partner Lisa was heavily pregnant. All our family and friends lived near us and we had a very happy and settled life.
But here I was frantically trying to make sense of the missed calls from Neil Lennon and Celtic staff arranging flights and hotels. It was crazy.
I left the training ground that day thinking I was just a piece of meat.
‘We’ve sold you so just go!’ was the attitude.
‘Your daughter is signed up to a nursery? Tough!’
Three hours after driving into the training ground I was finished, shown the door and heading to the airport and a future up in Scotland.
Football is a ruthless business at times. One minute you are scoring goals that make a club millions and the next minute you are being cast adrift.
Yet the players who try the hardest to leave a club and go somewhere of their choice are said to be disloyal. They are accused of having no emotional ties to their club, of having no class and of lacking professionalism.
This transfer window has thrown up more than a couple of surprises - van Dijk, Costa, Sanchez, Coutinho. Here in Scotland there is the situation surrounding Jamie Walker.
All these players have something in common. They find themselves at clubs they don’t want to be playing for.
As the transfer window slammed shut on Thursday night these players, along with others in the same situation, were faced with the harsh reality of still being on the payroll of the very people they so desperately wanted to leave.
They will be under huge pressure to perform. The fans will demand it, those they share a dressing room with every day will expect it.
Another transfer may come their way but the next window will not open for another three months … and that’s a very long time in football.
Player power will always be strong but if this window has shown us anything it is that clubs continue to hold all the aces. For they decide whether you stay or whether you go … what the player wants rarely comes into it. Flavour of the month one day, thrown out the door the next. It’s ruthless. Player power? Don’t make me laugh.
It’s not easy being a Scotland fan. It’s like playing with a yo-yo.
One minute you’re frustratingly fumbling with the string hoping for a chance of just one good throw, then the next you’re producing that famous ‘walk the dog’, showing off to all your mates with a new confidence in your step.
The draw with England, heart-breaking though it was to lose a goal so late on, and the fabulous performance in the win over Lithuania has handed us a realistic chance of snatching the play-off spot.
Who ever thought that would have been possible given how poorly the campaign started?
What we need tonight is the type of performance that will have Hampden rocking. There is a new feeling of expectation and, dare I say it, hope. It’s Malta for crying out loud, surely no chance of a slip up?
Were that to happen, the new spirit among the Tartan Army would disappear as quickly as it arrived.
And the yo-yo, its string tangled and knotted, would be tossed back into the toy box!
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