European clubs have almost three months in which to conduct their summer transfer activity and yet, every deadline day, there’s a desperate, last-minute scramble to force deals across the line. A whole media industry has been built around deadline day shenanigans, with news channels pouring considerable resources into bringing viewers BREAKING! stories, breathless EXCLUSIVES!, and placing reporters within a ten mile radius of every airport and helipad of Europe’s major clubs. If a chairman or player’s agent even so much as sneezes on deadline day, you’ll know about.
It is not for minds as simple as ours to question why such a fundamental part of running a club – player recruitment – is handled in a manner akin to a drunken game of Twister. These are, after all, professional sports entities run by professional people who, as their titles suggest, do this sort of thing for a living. Nevertheless, we’re quietly confident the HR departments of major corporations across the globe appoint their directors and senior executives in a rather less slap-dash fashion.
All we can do is sit back, pour a cold one and enjoy the chaos. Here’s five things to look out for this Transfer Deadline Day.
1. Manc Exodus
Both the red and blue corners of Manchester are believed to be readying a major talent dump over the next 48 hours. Louis van Gaal told his players on Friday that “after this weekend, we shall maybe have another group.” Those most likely to be shepherded towards the Old Trafford exit include Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck, Javier Hernandez and Anderson (if anyone can afford to feed him).
It’s a similar story at City, where Manuel Pellegrini is known to prefer working with a smallish squad and the club must at least pretend to be heeding UEFA’s toothless Financial Fair Play directive. Departees could include Scott Sinclair, Matija Nastasij and Micah Richards.
2. Falcao to Somebody. Anybody
Poor Radamel Falcao. The Colombian hit-man (is that a poor choice of phraseology?) is marooned in one of Europe’s richest principalities, unwanted by his Russian paymaster and with nothing but wads and wads of Euros to dry his tears. “Super Agent” Jorge Mendes has been shopping him around the Continent like a pimp with his eye on a new velour suit, yet nobody wants a piece of the action: presumably his $450,000 a week wages are something of a stumbling block.
We’d like to think that Falcao will end up somewhere completely left-field like Burnley or Stoke, but it seems most likely that, if he goes anywhere, it’ll be Real Madrid.
Update: As of the time of this posting, the rumor mill has kicked into high gear with the appearance - and then subsequent deleting - of a Tweet seemingly confirming a move to Real Madrid.
It appeard on Falcao's official Twitter account, but Falcao has said, ""I have to refute a story about a tweet I have not done and that is a photo montage." To which we say:
3. London Strike(r)s
With Olivier Giroud out for three months with a broken tibia, Alexis Sanchez preferring a wider role and Joel Campbell seemingly not trusted by Arsene Wenger to lead the attack, the Gunners are in rather short supply of target men. Their week 2 fixture against Everton showed how much they can struggle without a fulcrum for their attacking play, so expect to see Wenger (regardless of his protestations to the contrary) sniffing round some of Europe’s elder statesmen with an eye to a short-term loan.
Similarly, having sold Romelu Lukaku and let Fernando Torres go to AC Milan on a two-year loan, we suspect Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho will have his eye out for another striker to provide cover for the Prolific Diego Costa (his full title). Our bet? Loic Remy.
Update: It appears Loic Remy's transfer to Chelsea has just been confirmed:
— BetVictor (@BetVictor) August 31, 2014
4. A Deadline Day Hijack
It’s something of a tradition for a transfer to be hijacked on deadline day. The most famous must be Sir Alex Ferguson meeting Tottenham Hotspur’s Dimitar Berbatov at Manchester Airport en route to the Etihad Stadium, where Man City were due to secure his signature for £34M. Despite not having Spurs’ permission to talk to the player, Fergie convinced him to come to United instead for £3M less.
This year’s likely transfer hijack? We particularly like the thought of shady Madrid businessmen with fake cockney accents lurking in the shadows of East London, ready to spirit away a West Ham bound Radamel Falcao to the Bernabau.
No, we don’t think so either.
5. Barca Sale & Leaseback
The18 reported earlier this month on the ridiculousness of the botched transfer ban FIFA handed to Barcelona. What we didn’t tell you was that the ban, even now, has yet to be enforced. As a consequence, Barca’s directors are said to be considering a cunning little wheeze whereby they acquire some top-notch talent before deadline day and immediately loan said players back to their clubs for 12 months, thus neatly navigating FIFA’s sanctions. Bravo, Sepp Blatter. Bravo.
We’re going to take a punt on Juan Cuadrado for £30M, who presumably won’t even have to make the trip from Florence to Barca to complete the formalities.
