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Thank heavens the Premier League clubs went to all the trouble of cutting the transfer window short next summer. Now we will never have disruption once the season has started — unless next January is like this one, of course.
Then it will be the Wild West again, as it has been for the last three weeks. As of close of office hours on Monday there had been 60 transfer deals conducted by Premier League clubs alone this January, involving every participant, bar Swansea.
Most were small scale demotions to lower leagues, or loans, but Southampton have lost their best defender, Liverpool their best midfield player, Arsenal their best striker, Everton a rising star.
West Bromwich Albion still do not know whether Jonny Evans will be playing for or against them by February, while uncertainty spreads from Bournemouth to Newcastle.
The point of the truncated summer window was to increase stability once the league programme was underway — but, typically, clubs are bored with that by January. They want action. They want to buy their way out of trouble, or buy their way into contention. They want to plug gaps or cut out dead wood — and if the frenzy is approaching a peak now, imagine how bad it will be in 12 months when clubs have had even less time to achieve balance in August?
So what is the new plan? Incredibly a one-week January window in which to get business completed — as if Premier League owners would behave, if only they had less time to go daft. It is suggested a shorter winter trading period will be up for discussion at the Premier League annual meeting in June — with all the same problems that might yet be an issue this summer.
Europe’s windows will not close so clubs could be forced to sell, but would no longer be able to buy.
Barcelona could have delayed on Philippe Coutinho and tried to undermine a potential Champions League opponent, Liverpool, by taking him late.
And considering Leicester had all summer to get Adrien Silva over the line and failed, why would less time be conducive to more clear-headed negotiation?
Imagine the havoc the agent Mino Raiola could have wreaked inserting his client Henrikh Mkhitaryan into the Alexis Sanchez deal, had it been taking place against a less forgiving clock?
There have been 14 deals on Merseyside alone this January, plus seven by Arsenal. And this needs less time to be conducted sensibly?
David Moyes, the West Ham manager, even said all business could be tied up in one day if the clubs gathered in a giant meeting room. Yet that would be true, even with the current set-up. The deals could be done in a day, if there was the will. There could be a moratorium on buying on the night of January 1 if the clubs agreed.
Could they be trusted? Of course not. Clubs are meant to act in good faith over poaching managers during the season, but that did not stop Everton making multiple attempts to prise Marco Silva from Watford. Why would it be any different with players?
West Brom manager Alan Pardew did not dismiss the idea of selling Evans this January, but wished for the deal to be completed early so he would have time to line up replacements. And yet, with little more than a week to go, he remains in the dark about the future.
If football clubs really hated mid-season turmoil they could outlaw transfers altogether with a sincere handshake.
The game doesn’t actually need more rules, just greater self-control. Yet when has it ever had the heart for that?
There is no greater indictment of the cowardly, lickspittle regime of IOC president Thomas Bach than the fact that almost as many Russian athletes will be in Pyeongchang next month as competed at the last Winter Olympics, in Sochi.
Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) are now on course to be the second biggest deputation the country has sent to a Winter Games, despite the IOC already excluding 111 of 500 athletes submitted in a pre-registration pool by the Russian Olympic Committee.
It now transpires many of those 111 would not have qualified anyway, or participate in events where Russia has other eligible competitors — while 39 of the 43 Russians disqualified for doping at Sochi have hearings at the Court of Arbitration for Sport where, they hope, bans will be lifted. If Russia fills all its quota places it will have 213 athletes in Pyeongchang — as opposed to 214 at the Sochi games it corrupted.
He was also a beacon of clarity in a modern world of egos and fools.
Charged by the Football Association with finding the successor to Graham Taylor, he did the rounds of senior managers and coaches and returned with one name: Terry Venables.
It wasn’t the name the FA wanted to hear; it wasn’t a name that was ever particularly popular at Lancaster Gate. Yet it was the right name and England developed hugely under Venables’ stewardship. That his tenure lasted just five competitive matches was because others could not put their misgivings and petty vendettas aside.
Armfield was always bigger than that. How many times over the last decade has the game cried out for a man with his sincere and understated rationality?
And how equally sad is it that relations between Blackpool’s fans and its owners, the Oyston family, have deteriorated to such an extent that even a human gesture is treated with suspicion?
Blackpool have announced that all ticket sales from their game with Charlton on Saturday will be donated to Trinity Hospice, where Armfield was nursed in his final days.
This is not enough for some fans to break their continuing boycott of the club — while others do not trust the owners to be true to their word, particularly as there has been talk of an administration fee.
Whether to attend is a genuine dilemma for some fans but while there is no right or wrong action, the one thing Armfield was not is cynical. Attendance is not an endorsement of the current regime, but a tribute to a great Blackpool man.
It’s a free pass, really. Fill his stand, sing his name. His family would appreciate that, at least.
Southampton last won a league game in November. Despite this, it is said that the manager Mauricio Pellegrino is not under immediate pressure. The club is supportive of the situation he inherited from Claude Puel.
This would be the situation in which they finished eighth in the league, having reached a major domestic final. So not a bad situation at all, really. More urgent was the situation he inherited from the owners: the one in which the best players are relentlessly sold, leading to a decline in the standard of the football.
Puel also copped the blame for that, mind you. Southampton were not as exciting as they had been in previous years, it was said. Maybe they would have been more exciting with some of the players available to his predecessors:
Southampton have sold excitement to the highest bidder for years. And it is catching up with them, as invariably happens. A tipping point may have been reached. Few clubs can act as Southampton have without consequence, so this is a crisis entirely of the club’s making. Pellegrino just happens to be there at the time.
What makes no sense about Amanda Staveley’s proposed takeover of Newcastle is the numbers.
Not just the fact that PCP Capital Partners, her United Kingdom registered company, has no registered assets or employees, nor that it had no income in the year to March 31, 2017 and debts of £3.6million.
It is the figures around the deal that confuse. Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, is believed to want £350m. Staveley says she offered £250m, without conditions, and will spend a further £200m on transfers and improved facilities. That is an investment of £450m. So why not meet Ashley’s asking price, with £100m left for transfers and facilities, and a new television contract on the way? A cash injection of £100m, even £50m, would surely keep Newcastle safe. It makes no sense that Staveley (left) is £100m short of the asking price, while claiming to have £100m excess.
Is there scepticism around her bid because she is a woman, her camp asked at the weekend. No. A woman with £350m would be the owner of Newcastle right now, and good luck to her.
The issue is that Staveley insists she is a woman with £350m — more, in fact — but hasn’t made an unconditional offer near that sum. Hence questions.
It was not so much a statement, more a legal notice. ‘The catalyst for this decision is that unwarranted approach, something which the board believes has seen a significant deterioration in both focus and results to the point where the long-term future of Watford has been jeopardised,’ read Watford’s announcement on the dismissal of Marco Silva.
Reading between the lines, that sounds as much like a precursor for legal action against Everton, if Watford go down, as any explanation of the process. It always comes down to money with the Pozzo regime.
Winning that battle, however, may be tougher than merely putting out a press release. Have Watford deteriorated since the club rebuffed Everton’s approach for Silva? Undoubtedly, yes. Are the two events related? That is harder to say. For a start, Everton’s behaviour was hardly outrageous in the circumstances. Unhelpful, yes, but not illegal — unless it can be proved they were directly contacting Silva.
They came in three times, offering more money each time. And while not taking no for an answer is against the spirit of agreements between Premier League stakeholders, it is hardly unheard of in business. Everton probably thought Watford had a price — as Barcelona did of Liverpool over Philippe Coutinho, as Liverpool thought of Southampton over Virgil van Dijk. They were right, Everton were wrong. As long as they conducted negotiations fairly, however, trying to get Silva was no great crime.
Equally, there may be more complex reasons for Watford’s decline. Silva may be an impact manager, one who makes a quick impression but can’t sustain early impetus. He started well at Hull last season, before losing five of his final seven matches, as the club went down. Hull conceded 19 goals in that period — including seven against Tottenham.
Silva did a season at both Olympiacos and Sporting Lisbon. The only club at which he has maintained success is Estoril. His influence could have faded anyway. Watford also started brightly under Walter Mazzarri in 2016-17. Silva and Mazzarri won seven Premier League games by the first week in January, but then struggled. A business model built to make the manager disposable, and with economics at its heart, can lose momentum once safety is achieved.
Everyone at the club starts marking time. Certainly, there was no outside influence on Mazzarri and Watford faded just the same. It happened in 2015-16, too — just two league wins after February 13. Watford may feel aggrieved with Everton over Silva — but that does not mean they have a case.
His detractors often say that Arsene Wenger does not listen to anybody these days; but it would seem he has even stopped listening to himself. He says he cannot understand why a player would want to leave Arsenal. A logical retort would echo one of his most famous quotes.
Everyone thinks he has the prettiest wife at home.
Alexis Sanchez last played 90 minutes on January 3, for Arsenal against Chelsea. He played against Chelsea again, in the EFL Cup, for 24 minutes on January 10. His first Premier League game for Manchester United could be at Tottenham on January 31.
So a full four weeks since his last start. It would appear Jose Mourinho has a dilemma. Sanchez is a fit man, but Tottenham at Wembley are a singular proposition. A fast, energetic team on the biggest pitch in the country.
It is probably one of the most exhausting challenges a player will face this season — and certainly not one to enter into unless match fit. Mourinho’s decision is whether to play Sanchez in the fixture United face between now and then — away at Yeovil in the FA Cup fourth round on Friday.
Upside, he gets a run-out that shouldn’t be too challenging, can be withdrawn once United have the lead — it took them until the 64th minute to score in a 2-0 win down there in 2015 — and he would receive decent fitness preparation for the match against Tottenham.
The downside? It could be a ropey pitch, with League Two defenders putting it about, and what if United’s signing of the season turned his ankle in a tie that could have been won with the reserves?
That is before the commercial department ask why United unveiled a global star at Huish Park, not Wembley.
Still — that’s why Mourinho gets the big bucks. Even more, maybe, than Sanchez.
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