MARTIN SAMUEL
Victoria Wood was talking about her upbringing at Bury Grammar School for Girls. Everyone ate yogurt, she said, because everyone was struggling to stick to a diet.
‘Sandra, if you’re going into town gerrus a raspberry yogurt. If they haven’t got raspberry yogurt, gerrus summat else.’ Perfectly timed pause.
‘They didn’t have raspberry yogurt, so I got y’a meat and potato pie…’
and that’s what this transfer window has been. out for a yogurt, back with a pie. Say one thing, do another. announce a policy, implicate its reverse.
that was how yesterday became the most frantic deadline day in years. Lottery winners receive counsel on how to spend their new wealth but clearly nobody is advising football clubs or, if they are, the clubs aren’t listening.
it is not just those who sell when they say they won’t or buy when they say they’re done. it’s not just the deals left to the last minute that could have been concluded weeks ago. it’s the scattergun aim. take Liverpool. their first major play of the summer involved centre half Virgil van dijk of Southampton.
By June 7, that deal had fallen apart, with Southampton threatening to report them to the Premier League and Liverpool issuing an apology and ending their interest.
Plenty of time to search elsewhere, one would think, if greater strength at the back is required.
instead, since then Liverpool have signed a striker, a wide forward, two midfielders, a left back and were yesterday in negotiations for a winger.
Most agree it has been a busy and successful transfer window for Jurgen Klopp, even with a further 24 hours of uncertainty over Philippe coutinho until Spain’s window closes. certainly, in most areas, Liverpool seem to have a stronger squad. But wasn’t their priority a centre back? What happened to that? did they think Southampton would come around, despite their absolute insistence to the contrary? is Van dijk so special that there was no alternative?
West Ham have spent a month on the case of William carvalho of Sporting Lisbon. after three straight defeats, he would seem to be precisely what they need. carvalho drew comparisons with Patrick Vieira when he first broke into the Sporting team.
He is over six feet and imposing. a defensive midfielder, he has even played centre half for Sporting in emergencies. the player wanted to come but West Ham could not agree a fee.
then, yesterday, they were linked to another Portuguese midfielder — andre Gomes, currently with Barcelona. Gomes is about as far removed from carvalho as Mesut ozil is from Vieira. He is a lovely player but not a defensive force at all. He is a dribbler, a passer, a creator, much like West Ham’s existing star turn, Manuel Lanzini. Gomes would have been considered a great asset to West Ham if they had not already made it obvious that their priorities lay elsewhere. What changed in the interim, beyond Gomes being available and carvalho (below) overpriced? and when did team building become about what you can get rather than what you need?
Part of the reason so many are reaching an early conclusion that this is Manchester United’s year, is the air of calm around old trafford. Jose Mourinho has done business early. Not only that, his targets were focused: striker, centre half, defensive midfielder.
He did not get all he wanted — it seems antoine Griezmann was the initial target — but he moved quickly when disappointed and did not turn any deal into a saga.
compare the stability of United — and it hasn’t always been this way, if one remembers other windows since Sir alex Ferguson stood down — with the turmoil at rival elite clubs. does anyone, for instance, have a clue what is going on at arsenal?
Yes, we know the facts this morning, we know who is in, we know who is out — but what about the logic? can anyone detect a coherent plan in the events of the last seven days? From being probably the shrewdest players of the transfer market when arsene Wenger arrived, arsenal’s transfer windows have become increasingly
erratic of
late, a mad scramble of buying, or selling, that is little different from Tottenham. At least with Daniel Levy, however, we know this is his modus operandi. The Tottenham chairman likes last-minute deals as they increase bargaining power. There is no evidence of a similar thought process at Arsenal.
Their motives are too often reactive. The acquisition of Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker in 2011 was a direct result of the 8-2 defeat by Manchester United three days before the deadline.
In 2014, two draws in the opening three matches helped propel the signing of Danny Welbeck.
This time, a 4-0 loss at Liverpool appears to have provoked further upheaval. Having turned down £10m from West Brom for Kieran Gibbs in July, Arsenal then sold him to the same club for £7m. Having pronounced the Thomas Lemar deal dead two weeks ago, Arsenal returned yesterday with £92m. Not that Arsenal were alone in their confusion. How did Chelsea let the Diego Costa saga drag through the summer only to enter negotiations with Atletico Madrid at the eleventh hour? It has been a mental drain on the club for weeks, it has exasperated the coach, it has dominated the news agenda.
And it turns out a deal could have been done all along? Where was the sense in that?
Where, indeed, is the sense in only trying to deliver the improvements Antonio Conte has requested against the clock? Late additions to the squad — David Luiz and Marcos Alonso — worked last season but Chelsea were struggling back then. They went into this campaign as champions and failed to capitalise on that status. They lost advantage and momentum, and missed out on Alex oxlade- Chamberlain and Fernando Llorente with little time to come up with alternates. Delaying has proved counter-productive.
The same questions could be asked of Manchester City. Pep Guardiola wants to play a back three in some matches but only has three central defenders he rates good enough to start.
Sowhy was recruitment of a fourth in that position — Jonny Evans — left unresolved until deadline day? And why, with City’s interest in Alexis Sanchez very plain throughout the summer, were bids only tabled in the final week of August?
They are a well-run club, very clear in their objectives. They knew they wanted Sanchez, everyone knew they wanted Sanchez, so Arsenal must have known it, too.
Had City moved earlier the deal-breaker clauses and numbers required would have been apparent, Arsenal would have had more time to recruit a replacement and it could have gone quite smoothly. Instead, the Sanchez transfer required Arsenal to get Lemar’s £92m deal over the line in a matter of hours.
This is why talk of bringing the transfer deadline forward and shutting it unilaterally is misguided. This turmoil does not happen because the window stays open. It happens because this is how football clubs choose to operate. This is self-inflicted pain.
For all the moaning, the clubs set this lunatic timetable. So much of this business could have been done, or at the very least begun, weeks ago — and, in some cases, months.
Mamadou Sakho was one of the reasons Crystal Palace survived as a Premier League club, his January loan from Liverpool helped transform their season. Sakho wanted to stay, but Liverpool asked for £30m to make the deal permanent and Palace would not pay.
After a disastrous start to the season, however, they have been edging closer to a £25m fee, plus add- ons. Then yesterday, they agreed a fee of £18m, rising to £23m, for Eliaquim Mangala of Manchester City. Doing this would save at most £7m, but in the time elapsed Palace dropped nine points, delayed finalising a crucial component of their team until the second month of the season and toyed with recruiting an inferior player.
They ended up buying Sakho for £26m anyway. There is no deadlineday tinkering that could legislate against that bit of business, and little that makes sense of it. As any dietician will tell you: a raspberry yogurt is no meat and potato pie.