MARTIN SAMUEL’S
UNMISSABLE NEW TUESDAY COLUMN
THE verdict was close to unanimous. Premier League managers are in favour of shutting the transfer window early, and unilaterally.
One by one, they have all lined up behind it. Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Tony Pulis, Rafa Benitez, Arsene Wenger, Chris Hughton, Craig Shakespeare, Marco Silva, Sean Dyche.
Yes, the same Sean Dyche who yesterday signed Chris Wood of Leeds for Burnley, for a club record £15million. He is mortified by the disruption the transfer window can cause.
‘I’d close the window 10 days before the start of the season,’ said Dyche at the weekend. ‘As it stands, you can lose three players after the opening day and if that happens it undoes so much preseason planning.
‘Given that managers are under such pressure, losing two or three men can cost your job. The window situation is madness, really.’
The irony of this moralising will not have been lost on Leeds manager Thomas Christiansen. He wanted to play Wood against Sunderland at the weekend, but the player refused.
Why? He wanted to push through the move to Burnley — the club where the manager was delivering the sermon on how late transfer market activity could cost a colleague his job.
Still, to his credit, Dyche kept a straight face as he talked — as did Guardiola of Manchester City, a great advocate of ethics in the transfer market, when he is not trying to prise Jonny Evans out of West Bromwich Albion.
‘It would be nice,’ said Guardiola. ‘We can start from the first game of the Premier League with the squad we are working with.’ No doubt Pulis thinks that would be nice, too.
So you see the double standard, the hypocrisy. This control is completely within our grasp. If the owners, even the managers, got together and said they would not poach players from other English clubs after a week before the season started, that would be it.
There would be no need for limiting legislation, no risk of being left depleted if Barcelona make off with your best player — because an agreement between the clubs would be as good as black and white regulation. If Guardiola then went to Manchester City and asked for the money to buy Evans, he would be informed that this would be impossible, because City, West Brom and 18 other Premier League clubs had an arrangement not to shop at home once the season was underway.
Caught short, he could still buy abroad, but not here.
We are hiding behind the laws, as it is. Dyche, Guardiola and any other manager with plans for a domestic raid, will justify his actions by saying no rules have been broken. But their words suggest they know this behaviour is wrong. So why do it?
Why not simply take responsibility? We want it all ways. Last week, having lost Gylfi Sigurdsson, Paul Clement said the transfer window should shut early. He had our sympathy. Yesterday, Swansea agreed a fee with Hull for Sam Clucas. And on it goes.