Kane drama simply highlights madness of transfer deadline
ASYSTEM that allows for Harry Kane to play against the English champions on week one of the Premier League season yet line up for them the following weekend is odd when you think about it.
Should the most-touted ‘will he, won’t he’ transfer saga of the summer finally reach a conclusion after Tottenham take on Manchester City today, that anomaly could well become a reality.
The off-season is when deals should be done and squads assembled and finalised.
A transfer window that remains open after the gun goes for the title race to start – or in Spurs’ case the scrap for fifth – is too draughty to be desirable.
A Grandmaster would not start a chess match with a bishop missing and an extra couple of pawns still on the board. He would have his pieces in place and his strategy clear. In the same way a club’s playing resources should be set at the start of the season.
There is always the winter window to re-evaluate and restock once the picture of the season becomes sharper.
It is increasingly rare for recruitment to be left solely in the hands of managers at Premier League clubs but that does not shield them from the impact the uncertainty around it brings. For that to drag on once the actual football has started is a waste of energy and mental bandwidth.
Both Pep Guardiola and Nuno Espirito Santo have enough ongoing uncertainties on their plates without the outcome of the Kane-athon going into extra-time, yet that is what the current transfer window encourages.
Running down the clock in the hope of extracting the best price from a potential suitor is an obvious negotiating tactic. If the clock is set to run beyond the start of the season, then the temptation is for that time to be used.
No one wants English clubs to be placed at a disadvantage to European counterparts in the marketplace by moving the current window unilaterally and allowing their rivals a free space to buy later.
But if it is possible to put in place a pan-european closure date of August 31 across the big five leagues now, then it cannot be beyond the wit of man to come up with a mutually acceptable date that falls before a ball is kicked. France’s Ligue 1 was the first of the leagues to begin last weekend. If August 6 had been deadline day, that would still have given English clubs a full eight weeks to do their wheeler-dealing. Enough time, surely?
As it is, the situation could grind on for another fortnight. That does Kane, Tottenham and Manchester City no favours.
The England captain told
Spurs he wanted to leave three months ago.this should have been all done and dusted one way or another by now.
For what it is worth, this observer’s view is that it is
time for Spurs to let Kane follow his ambition after all his wonderful service.that is not an easy sentence to write.the emotional pull of the one-club career footballer – give or take a loan or two – is strong. Football is a game of powerful loyalties after all.
The stacking up of talent
– too much of it unused – at a tiny number of pandemicproof clubs is depressing in its way, too. But a fair-minded employer should not be forcing an employee to stay against his will and if Kane’s mind is made up he should be allowed to depart, particularly if it will net Spurs an eight-figure sum.
Better for chairman Daniel Levy to honour the gentleman’s agreement he struck with Kane, allow him to leave now and take the money. For a club which lost £63.9million in 2019-20 and which carries the largest debt of any side in Europe – mainly as a result of the new stadium – it will be useful.
In the real world, if someone wanted to leave their job and pursue an opportunity with a different firm, they would serve whatever notice period was written into their contract and move on. Football dances to a different tune but the same basics of human behaviour apply.
If he stays, Spurs may find they do not have quite the same Kane as before. If individuals are totally invested in their work and inspired by their workplace, they will operate at their optimum. If they are not, they won’t.
That is not to say Kane will down tools at Spurs – he is too honourable a person and too professional a player to
indulge in those sort of games.
But if he is still at Spurs in four
months’ time, when the winter transfer window opens once more, then all this will resurface again.