The transfer window closing early in England.

Tickle Lad

New Member
Newbie
Joined
May 26, 2019
Messages
133
Supports
Leicester City
How has their been a disadvantage? All I've seen is PL clubs shifting their deadwood abroad. I agree it should be the same across Europe but still, the outcome hasn't been that bad at all. It also was never a bizarre decision in the first place, the old window was ridiculous and it made total sense to change it. Clubs were starting their season and planning the future with players playing for them, only for them to get snatched by other English clubs at the last second.

Now there is a clear line between silly season and the actual football season which I find a breath of fresh air. Fair enough if we had Pogba on strike wanting to go to Real or something but that just hasn't been the reality.
Well there’s lots of things that I’m surprised you haven’t noticed so I’m sure I’ll just be repeating from earlier in the thread:

Simple market forces mean that prices for English clubs are inflated whilst prices for foreign clubs deflate once our window closes. This includes the variation in competition for players on the demand side which push prices up, and the negotiating power foreign clubs have on the selling side due to the onus being on English clubs to do or die before the end of their window. For example Barcelona were widely reported to be offering Coutinho to English clubs for a £20m loan fee, but once those clubs left the market they made do with a £7.75m fee from Bayern Munich.

Then there’s the issue of the hard time it takes to conduct complex high stakes negotiations worth many £m’s, the finite nature of transfer budgets meaning these negotiations are part of sequential transfer strategies. In this way when having to work through the negotiations for a Plan A player, then having to move on to Plan B, Plan C etc every second available is gold dust, and therefore when these seconds are diminished it either times out the deals or - as above - requires even more money to be thrown by the buying club at greasing wheels. For instance PSG had an extra three weeks to complete the complex deal for Dybala than Tottenham in case Neymar left, and by reliable accounts were negotiating at around £55m rather than the £65m fee Tottenham agreed.

This issue also applies for Premier League clubs wishing to sell and replace a particular player as foreign clubs too have to work through their transfer lists and may not come to want this Premier League player until after the PL deadline, either preventing a replacement being bought and weakening the team for at least half a season, or preventing the sale completely and hindering the squad turnover and therefore progress. This can be seen in the case of Eriksen - Tottenham essentially publicly acknowledged they would be forced to sell him were an offer to arrive due to his contract situation but would no longer be able to replace him, seriously weakening them. And if the PL window was in line with Europe's who is to say that Eriksen would not have chosen to join yourselves knowing that no rival European clubs would be coming for him due to the proximity of their window closing?

Then there’s the issue of the transfer domino effect; as I said deals take a long time and so if Barcelona for example had bought Neymar at the last moment and urgently needed to push someone like Dembele out for a cut price, would you have been happy for Manchester United to be paralysed against making a move due to the closure of our window?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Penna

VeevaVee

The worst "V"
Scout
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
46,262
Location
Manchester
It's pretty obvious that all the windows should align one way or the other. So obvious that it leads me to believe someone lent heavily on the decision makers for this because it was an incredibly dumb move. It didn't turn out too bad but certainly could have for someone.

I wonder if we'd have signed another player had it been longer or if we'd have just drawn our talks out even more.
 

KirkDuyt

Full Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2015
Messages
24,634
Location
Dutchland
Supports
Feyenoord
Why would the rest of Europe pay any attention to the PL? Brexit means brexit!

really though, it's silly, you either all do it, or no one does.
 

mitchmouse

loves to hate United.
Joined
Oct 8, 2014
Messages
17,577
when I first heard this being suggested, I presumed I had misheard. It's about as spitting in a gale-force head wind. Sounds like the dummies he thought it up are about to change their minds...