FOFANA FARCE SHOWS WINDOW IS STILL A PAIN IN THE ARSENE
THERE have been times in the last couple of decades when transfer deadline day has been properly good fun.
Big-name moves – including Wayne Rooney’s switch from Everton to Manchester United in 2004 and Ashley Cole’s from Arsenal to Chelsea in 2006 – delighted and infuriated supporters in equal measure.
And while the cash was being splashed, the backdrop to all the wheeling and dealing being played out on Sky Sports News has often been more entertaining than the transfers themselves.
From Peter Odemwingie’s bid to force a move to QPR to Harry Redknapp leaning out of his car window, and from broken fax machines, lost paperwork, inflatable dolls, sex toys in ears, bare backsides and other smutty episodes, the day has become the stuff of legend.
The trouble is, in recent years it has started to become a bit of a damp squib, and as Thursday’s deadline day comes fully into view you wonder why deals are still even being done four games into the season.
Seven years ago, Arsene Wenger was asked if it bothered him that the window was still open when games were being played. “Yes,” said the former Arsenal boss, “because it creates uncertainties. At the start of the season, everybody should be committed, not half-in, half-out.”
Thomas Tuchel echoed that sentiment a couple of weeks ago, saying: “What would maybe make more sense is to have everything finished and then the season starts.
“Then you know against whom you will compete because teams can be very, very different from the first game of the season until the fourth or fifth game, it can be a totally different squad.”
Ironically, it is Chelsea’ pursuit of Leicester’s Wesley
Fofana (below) that has provided the most compelling evidence of this summer that the window should be shut before matchday one.
Fofana’s mind has been at Stamford Bridge for at least a couple of weeks, even if his body hasn’t, and there can be no arguing that his situation has contributed greatly to the Foxes woeful start to the campaign.
One way to resolve things would be for UEFA to rule that, in Europe, the transfer window opens the morning after the Champions League Final and closes the day before the first league under its jurisdiction kicks off.
It can then open again from January 1 to 31, although there’s a very good argument to say then it is only open to players who have played less than, say, five games all season.
Another option, of course, would be to go back to the good old days of a free-for-all when clubs were allowed to buy and sell players at any time of year.
And given that football is entertainment, it’s a soap opera, we’d be adding greatly to the drama if transfers were once again permitted all year round.
It worked for more than a century until 2002, when FIFA brought in transfer windows, and imagine the sub-plots we’d potentially get at a time when the Premier League, for one, looks to be nothing more than a two-horse race . . . in good years.
Having deadline day a month into a season is a halfway house that benefits buying clubs, but can cause all sorts of issues at those being plundered.
And if we’re going to have that kind of madness for a month, why not introduce it all season?