With the January Transfer Window just days away from opening, The Daily Shift’s Ian Colgan looks at its function, trends, and some of the main transfers we are likely to see.
Barcelona’s David Villa: sought after by Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
The January Transfer Window is football’s answer to alligator hunting season in Louisiana, or mating season among Garter snakes; a solid, feverish month of rumours, hasty impulse buys, queered deals and sudden coups. Anyone who has witnessed the Red-Side Garter snake as it emerges from hibernation, will recognise instantly the same behavioural patterns observed in Premier League Managers during January.
As soon as they come awake, up to thousands of male Garter snakes – all of which have a penis on each side of their body – will go straight for the lone female of the group all at once, probing with whichever of its members is closest to the female at the centre of what becomes a giant pile.
It’s a tourist attraction in parts of Canada, and those who flock to Manitoba year after year to see it have – for the last ten years or so – been able to find the same action throughout many parts of England. And for those with strong stomachs and good constitutions, it’s probably worth the price of the trip. For four straight weeks the mist descends on managers and club chairmen who recognise that it’s a time for ‘swamp people’ and start buying and selling players like meat, losing all self-control in their pursuit of an in-form striker, holding midfielder or menacing wing back. Anyone who can aid their situation, who fits the mould and can “get the job done”.
Reserved and quiet managers like Tony Pulis or Steve Clarke will cannibalise each other like tribal chimps to lay their hands on whoever they happen to set their sights on. And the hapless players who are brought in are expected to be either missing pieces of the puzzle, frill signings – there merely to add squad depth – or last-hope ‘saviours’.
Unlike the two-month pre-season window of opportunity when the ‘calculated’ and level-headed signings are made, the timeframe of the mid-season window is significantly shorter, yet the only day to get cranked up for, for onlookers, is the last. Deadline Day: January 31; a mad rush when managers are so frayed and desperate to close a deal they will sign just about anyone. That was the day, last season, that Bolton agreed to pay New York Red Bulls £2.5 million for Tim Ream, when West Ham inherited Ravel Morrison from Manchester United, and when Sunderland panicked and took Wayne Bridge on a loan deal and brought ageing Sotirios Kyrgiakos back to the Premiership from Wolfsburg.
It was also the day in 2011 when Liverpool forked out £35 million for Andy Caroll – a deal which lives in infamy as being one of the worst of all time. It was an unusual move for January where, despite the widespread migration, ‘major’ signings that surpass the £20 million mark in the Premier League tend to be a rare occurrence. Liverpool were also behind one of the only other cases in recent memory; the purchase of Luis Suárez from Ajax a few hours before they secured Caroll. And the only other examples that come to mind right now are Edin Džeko’s move from Wolfsburg to Manchester City, and Chelsea’s obscene payout for Fernando Torres.
Whether any of these can be outdone during this season’s January Transfer Window is too early to predict. Arsenal have the funds to do it, and if Wenger wasn’t so penny-wise he might be tempted to break the bank, if only to make a statement and satisfy his increasingly disgruntled fan base. Mancini has said he’s happy with the squad he has, but for reasons that are clear to anyone aware of his ruthless thirst for glory, he has been having a difficult time convincing the press that January will be a relatively dormant period for City. Likewise, Ferguson has also hinted at a quiet month ahead for United, dismissing it as a bad time to buy.
And it is, traditionally. But it’s hard to take this talk seriously amid speculation that both United and City are about to be locked into a brutal two-way hunt for Fernandinho of Shakhtar Donetsk, and that Ferguson is also hot for Nordsjælland’s Jores Okore – a potential solution to their chronic defensive problem.
But this is all hearsay. Many of the deals throughout January will either happen too fast to properly evaluate at the time, or else go awry. I recently told a friend of mine, living in Madrid, that the only way he’d get to see Falcao play live and in the flesh after January was if he forked out for a flight to Stamford Bridge. Now Falcao has made me look a fool by saying he wants to stay put in Spain until the end of the season. With Sturridge Anfield bound, however, it’s a safe bet that Chelsea will bring in a striker in some shape of form in January.
Just who or what is anyone’s guess. Demba Ba has been mentioned, and would be ‘cheap’ with a buyout clause of just £7 million, though they’d have to beat Harry Redknapp and possibly Alan Pardew himself to the punch. ‘Frustrated’ David Villa is also a target, for Chelsea as well as Arsenal and Liverpool. But with whoever they land also comes the risk of Torres withering under the pressure of having competition.
This is the main shadow loitering in the background of any prospective deal Chelsea look to make over the next several weeks, and it can only be ignored for so much longer. It’s widely believed that Torres is too sensitive and prone to temperamental mood swings to fend off any threat to his position. The wretched time he had sharing the spotlight with Drogba is still a healing wound, but the Spaniard has been said to be fully behind any swoop on another striker, and would welcome the opportunity to fight for his place.
Only a striker surging with supreme confidence would welcome the task of going toe-to-toe with David Villa for a place in the starting XI. The Torres of last season, for instance, would probably not have made a statement like that. And if he did, nobody would have believed him, that is not quite the case now. Lately, six goals in as many games have likely seen his self-assurance mushroom to Ibrahimovic-sized proportions, and are a reason to take him at his word.
If procuring David Villa is Chelsea’s main preoccupation in January, then the rest of their efforts may be spent on adding to their back line. Again, this may mean competing with Arsenal and Liverpool in the headhunting of young Dutch defender Stefan de Vrij of Feyenoord. A tall and powerful versatile player, de Vrij has precision timing when it comes to tackles, and is considered very composed on the ball for a defender.
Liverpool could use him the most, but they are more likely to succeed in going after Alex Pearce of Reading. And with a rebuff from Feyenoord probable, Rodgers is liable to save time by concentrating all of his efforts on Pearce. He might even prefer him. When Rodgers managed reading in ‘09, he made the then-20-year-old vice-captain, and Pearce was named Reading’s ‘Player of the Season’ for 2011/12. Let the feeding frenzy begin.
