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| Money Box by Amar Patel |
As those who are associated with football will know that there are two transfer windows. One at the beginning of the season and the other during the middle. The rule was set out by FIFA in 2002. The first Window lasts twelve weeks, the second one lasts one month. If the last day of either window falls on the weekend, there is an extra day that is used for clubs to make last minute signings the cut-off point for all transfers is 11pm on Deadline Day.
Players can be signed either on a temporary loan or yearly contract deal. It is then up to the club’s owner to speak with the player and his agent to make a deal in order to buy him.
The highest Transfer Window amount for a Premier League season thus far was the 2019-20 season, which was £1,41billion.
Neymar JR’s move from Barcelona to Paris Saint Germain for €198 million in 2017 is the most expensive deal in history thus far. Harry Maguire’s move from Leicester City to Manchester United for £80million is the highest transfer deal for an English player in the Premier League era.
Generally speaking, it is the big clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea etc, who tend to do most of the work in both windows. However, most of the work is usually done in the summer as there is two-month break in between each season and so clubs are willing to spend more money as they have a longer period of time and there is a much wider range of players to buy. City spent a record £62.8million on Atletico Madrid midfielder Rodri in the summer of 2019.
On the other hand, Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has not been afraid to go with a different approach, where he has been using some of the players from the academy and included them in the first team throughout his first season in charge. Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount are amongst those who started their career in the Chelsea Under 18s under Jody Morris and then developed as better players at Derby, Swansea, Aston Villa and even now at Chelsea.
It just goes to show that you don’t necessarily have to go looking for players from the Window itself, if you have a well-structured youth system at the club, there is always plenty of time to groom those players into potential stars of the game. Take Lionel Messi as an example, the Argentine magician started his career at Barcelona’s youth academy and has transformed himself into not only being a Barcelona legend, but also an icon of world football.
Although, let’s not forget that the Blues had a Transfer Ban during the 2019-20 season for breaching the rules of Status and Transfer of players under 18. This includes the player's parents move to the new country for non-football reasons, both clubs are in the EU and the player is aged between 16-18 and they must live within 100km of the new club.
Bertrand Traore who played 25 games for under 16s and 18s was not officially registered by FA. Therefore, the club were banned from buying new players until the summer of 2020.
This was an unusual situation for the Blues as the like to spend big, especially in the summer Transfer Window.
Chelsea still managed to sign Cristian Pulisic for £58 million from Borussia Dortmund in January 2019. This was the club’s last big money signing before the Transfer ban was put in place. This was such a crucial move for the Blues as it was the last chance for the club to strengthen their first team squad by signing the Croatian midfielder.
So, you can see how the Transfer Window plays an imperative part in football, especially on the business scheme of things. You can spend as much a you like, but the are still rules to that you have to stick to for purchasing new players for your club.
Each club has their own policy for buying players from the window itself. This includes the players having medical check-ups before signing contracts with new clubs. If they pass the medical test, this means that they are eligible to play for their new club. This contains no health issues such as ongoing injuries.
The medical also includes general health issues such as dental check-ups to ensure that they are physically ready to start playing for their new club.
It is then up to the medical team to inform the manager if the player is fit or not fit enough to play.
The other issue managers have is where to fit him or her in the team? Some players go to clubs which already have a settled squad and therefore there is the likelihood of not getting enough game time as there could be a number of players who can play in the same position as your new signing. As, a result of this, some managers are having to frequently rotate their starting line-ups for each match.
This is why some clubs prefer to do their business in the beginning of the season, so that they can plan ahead in terms of the future. However, some teams would generally use the January Window as a safety net if they are struggling for form or have a number of players out with injury.
This is one of the reasons as why managing a football team is the one of the most stressful jobs in sport, you need to have the ability to adapt to different situations, especially with players who have on loan contracts as they can only stay at the club for a limited amount of time. So, this is why some manager like to build a full squad of players, so that if most of his first XI are out with injuries, he still has other players that he can depend on to fill the role of another player’s absence. This is otherwise known as squad rotation.
However, the negative side of squad rotation is that if there are a group of players who are in red hot form, they would not want to be on the bench in the next game, particularly when their performance in the last game was of high quality. You would generally find that the team who makes fewer changes and picks up fewer injuries in a whole season has a great chance of winning silverware. Take Leicester City’s incredible season of 2015-16 where Claudio Ranieri made as fewer changes than any other team in that season.
The key thing about squad rotation is that you need to have a group of players who can fit into the same role of the player who is out with an injury. If you take Tottenham Hotspur as an example, when skipper Harry Kane was out for the last part of the 2018-19 season, Mauricio Pochettino already had a replacement in Lucas Moura, whose last-minute goal against Ajax sent them through to their fourth European Cup final in 35 years.
So, you could say that squad rotation only works if all the players are in good form and have a good chemistry with each other along with a desire to win as well as playing under a top-class manager such as Sir Alex, who liked to make a few tweaks to his side for every game due to the depth of talent that he had in his squads. This is why managers face such a hectic time in the Transfer Window, they are looking to add more depth in their squad, so that it enables the team to become more successful in winning football matches.
Feature Image: Money Box by Amar Patel
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