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| Transfer deadline day is everything that football should be | |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| There’s not a pitch in sight, but the sport reaches its glorious peak when absurd rumours force real life to take a back seat | |
| Tue 30 Jan 2018 13.40 GMT | Tue 30 Jan 2018 13.40 GMT |
| Last modified on Tue 30 Jan 2018 14.35 GMT | |
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| It’s time. The Sky Sports News presenters have downed three bottles of Adderall, ready to scream rumours of MK Dons securing a loan deal for a Chelsea academy player you’ve never heard of into our scared little faces. Wednesday is transfer deadline day, the best day of the football calendar: better than the FA Cup final, better than the last day of the season, better than when Gary Lineker has a couple of drinks and goes full “messy bitch” at Piers Morgan on social media. | It’s time. The Sky Sports News presenters have downed three bottles of Adderall, ready to scream rumours of MK Dons securing a loan deal for a Chelsea academy player you’ve never heard of into our scared little faces. Wednesday is transfer deadline day, the best day of the football calendar: better than the FA Cup final, better than the last day of the season, better than when Gary Lineker has a couple of drinks and goes full “messy bitch” at Piers Morgan on social media. |
| I love it. It’s like a game of grandmother’s footsteps played out on national scale. Certain footballers are identified as being “on the move” by tabloids and from that point on, they are the Hunted: their every movement is watched and tracked on social media. “Fabinho has been spotted at baggage reclaim at Manchester airport.” “Olivier Giroud has been spotted in the King’s Road Waitrose buying an egg salad sandwich.” “Ashley Barnes has been spotted at Canada Water, looking confused at the London Overground timetable, trying to work out which train goes to Thornton Heath (he’s having an absolute ‘mare, everyone knows that’s National Rail).” | I love it. It’s like a game of grandmother’s footsteps played out on national scale. Certain footballers are identified as being “on the move” by tabloids and from that point on, they are the Hunted: their every movement is watched and tracked on social media. “Fabinho has been spotted at baggage reclaim at Manchester airport.” “Olivier Giroud has been spotted in the King’s Road Waitrose buying an egg salad sandwich.” “Ashley Barnes has been spotted at Canada Water, looking confused at the London Overground timetable, trying to work out which train goes to Thornton Heath (he’s having an absolute ‘mare, everyone knows that’s National Rail).” |
| It’s like if you had to buy all your electrical appliances in 31 days. Do I buy one toaster? What if that toaster breaks? | It’s like if you had to buy all your electrical appliances in 31 days. Do I buy one toaster? What if that toaster breaks? |
| Fans suddenly know everything there is to know about flight times and immigration control: in 2013, when Gonzalo Higuaín moved from Real Madrid, countless Twitter users claimed every day of that summer that he was on a plane to London and he’d be touching down to sign for Arsenal within the hour. Some Arsenal fans still believe that’s where he is now, having been circling Heathrow airspace for five years, subsisting on small packets of nuts, tiny cans of Diet Coke and moth-eaten copies of High Life. | Fans suddenly know everything there is to know about flight times and immigration control: in 2013, when Gonzalo Higuaín moved from Real Madrid, countless Twitter users claimed every day of that summer that he was on a plane to London and he’d be touching down to sign for Arsenal within the hour. Some Arsenal fans still believe that’s where he is now, having been circling Heathrow airspace for five years, subsisting on small packets of nuts, tiny cans of Diet Coke and moth-eaten copies of High Life. |
| From a business point of view, of course, transfer deadline day is terrible. In January 2008 Steve Coppell, then manager of Reading, said that it encourages clubs to buy too many mediocre players that they don’t really want – an honest enough sentiment, but one that would have been more commendable had he not signed Jimmy Kébé two weeks later. | From a business point of view, of course, transfer deadline day is terrible. In January 2008 Steve Coppell, then manager of Reading, said that it encourages clubs to buy too many mediocre players that they don’t really want – an honest enough sentiment, but one that would have been more commendable had he not signed Jimmy Kébé two weeks later. |
| The introduction of the January transfer window – stopping players being able to move all year round – was supposed to encourage stability in clubs. Instead it has just concentrated that instability into a smaller period. It’s like if you had to buy all your electrical appliances in 31 days. Do I buy one toaster? What if that toaster breaks? What if I don’t want to stick to my current breakfast formation? What if I want to eat toast most days but want the option of bringing an espresso off the bench after 70 minutes? On 1 February I’d end up with seven toasters, four coffee machines, one ice-cream maker and no fridge. | The introduction of the January transfer window – stopping players being able to move all year round – was supposed to encourage stability in clubs. Instead it has just concentrated that instability into a smaller period. It’s like if you had to buy all your electrical appliances in 31 days. Do I buy one toaster? What if that toaster breaks? What if I don’t want to stick to my current breakfast formation? What if I want to eat toast most days but want the option of bringing an espresso off the bench after 70 minutes? On 1 February I’d end up with seven toasters, four coffee machines, one ice-cream maker and no fridge. |
| But as a fan it’s wonderful, purely for that feeling that anything can happen. In an actual game of football, there are a limited number of outcomes – maybe you win, maybe you lose, maybe your goalkeeper scores a last-minute diving header, maybe a chicken wearing a Blackburn kit is released on to the field in protest against the owners. Boring. | But as a fan it’s wonderful, purely for that feeling that anything can happen. In an actual game of football, there are a limited number of outcomes – maybe you win, maybe you lose, maybe your goalkeeper scores a last-minute diving header, maybe a chicken wearing a Blackburn kit is released on to the field in protest against the owners. Boring. |
| But on transfer deadline day, it’s all up for grabs – an Abu Dhabi royal can suddenly take over your club and buy you Robinho, Peter Odemwingie can drive to Loftus Road and beg in vain that QPR sign him, Liverpool can think Andy Carroll is good and decide to pay actual, real money – £35m of it – to buy him. What’s more, it can all happen out of nowhere. Rumours that are mere tabloid-fodder at 9am, like Rafael van der Vaart to Tottenham, can be made real by midnight. | But on transfer deadline day, it’s all up for grabs – an Abu Dhabi royal can suddenly take over your club and buy you Robinho, Peter Odemwingie can drive to Loftus Road and beg in vain that QPR sign him, Liverpool can think Andy Carroll is good and decide to pay actual, real money – £35m of it – to buy him. What’s more, it can all happen out of nowhere. Rumours that are mere tabloid-fodder at 9am, like Rafael van der Vaart to Tottenham, can be made real by midnight. |
| For an Arsenal fan, it’s the hope that sucks you in – historically, Arsène Wenger has been far too serious to board the transfer merry-go-rounds, preferring instead transfer kiddie-rides you find outside of Asda (better known as Yaya Sanogo). But in the past few years that has changed, with Mesut Özil arriving in a mega-deal on deadline day in 2013. As the minutes count down and the rumours dry up faster than Fernando Llorente’s goals since joining Spurs, you can still cling to that mantra: it’s not over yet. | For an Arsenal fan, it’s the hope that sucks you in – historically, Arsène Wenger has been far too serious to board the transfer merry-go-rounds, preferring instead transfer kiddie-rides you find outside of Asda (better known as Yaya Sanogo). But in the past few years that has changed, with Mesut Özil arriving in a mega-deal on deadline day in 2013. As the minutes count down and the rumours dry up faster than Fernando Llorente’s goals since joining Spurs, you can still cling to that mantra: it’s not over yet. |
| This is what makes deadline day so great. Often football is a disappointment – a drab 0-0 draw, play-acting to get another player sent off, the post-playing career of Michael Owen. But on deadline day none of that matters. It’s not about reality, or results, or trying to work out how a player will fit into a system – it’s about potential. For one glorious night you create a narrative that this last-minute deal will change your club forever – one in which Radamel Falcao scores 40 goals in a season, or Danny Welbeck becomes the new Thierry Henry. | This is what makes deadline day so great. Often football is a disappointment – a drab 0-0 draw, play-acting to get another player sent off, the post-playing career of Michael Owen. But on deadline day none of that matters. It’s not about reality, or results, or trying to work out how a player will fit into a system – it’s about potential. For one glorious night you create a narrative that this last-minute deal will change your club forever – one in which Radamel Falcao scores 40 goals in a season, or Danny Welbeck becomes the new Thierry Henry. |
| When the players are standing there, next to the club fax machine at 11.30pm, holding up the shirt and plastering a smile across their face, they are in their purest form. They are the possibility of success, the dream, the hope, unsullied by actual events. It’s why we put up with the drama, the ITK tweets, the frothing at the mouth of Jim White as he relays another rumour about Pavel Pogrebnyak. In a game which has so frequently breaks our hearts, it’s these little moments that we have to cling to. | When the players are standing there, next to the club fax machine at 11.30pm, holding up the shirt and plastering a smile across their face, they are in their purest form. They are the possibility of success, the dream, the hope, unsullied by actual events. It’s why we put up with the drama, the ITK tweets, the frothing at the mouth of Jim White as he relays another rumour about Pavel Pogrebnyak. In a game which has so frequently breaks our hearts, it’s these little moments that we have to cling to. |
| • Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer | • Jack Bernhardt is a comedy writer |
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