The transfer window has slammed shut once again. Wouldn’t it be nice if one year it could be closed gently, without disturbing the whole damn house? At some point they’re going to slam it so hard that the glass will shatter and we’ll all have to walk across the broken shards in bare feet like that scene from Die Hard which is always cut when they show it on the telly. I may have laboured this metaphor a little too hard, but it’s only to show my disdain for the whole shebang.
I’m with Arsene Wenger on this one; the winter transfer window should be scrapped. The novelty has worn off and all we’re left with is inflated prices and attempts to get drum up excitement about Stoke signing some bloke you’ve never heard of from a country you’re only vaguely sure exists.
The media’s ridiculous hyping of deadline day raises the fans’ expectation levels to impossible heights, for example look at Arsenal’s signing of Kim Källström. An experienced pro, with a decent career behind him brought in as back-up in case the club lose any more midfielders. On any other day it would have slipped under the radar with little comment. But because of the day the deal was done, with every Gooner hoping for another Mesut Özil (although Källström has two umlauts, making him twice the player, surely?) the level of vitriol aimed at our new signing on Twitter – that well known bastion of sanity – was ludicrous.
Even with the injuries to Wilshere and Ramsey as well as Flamini’s suspension we’ve still got Ozil, Cazorla, Rosicky and Arteta in there. Not to mention Oxlade-Chamberlain who Wenger sees as a central player in the not too distant future. So let’s face it, Källström is unlikely to jump straight into the first team is he? He’s an insurance policy at best. He’s no Draxler obviously, but again without the hit-hungry media and the retweet whores of Twitter inventing delegations and confusing the words “done deal” with “nothing of interest is happening here” we’d have been none the wiser and the comparisons with our new Swede would never come about. Plus Draxler is an umlaut-free German so how on earth can we accurately judge his ability?
The only deal of any real note this window was the Mata one. I understand the argument that it strengthens Man Utd against City and Arsenal but for me the benefit of that is outweighed by the fact that it weakens Chelsea much more. Sure, he wasn’t getting games but was he really so far down the pecking order that an injury to Oscar or Hazard wouldn’t have seen him come straight into the team? I can’t see any real reason to sell him to be honest. I know he wanted game time before the World Cup and everything, but Mourinho is hardly known for the generosity of his spirit, is he? He was happy to hoard players in the past so what’s changed? Would he really sell a player in the vague hope that he might be enough to turn a mediocre Man Utd team into Man City beaters?
It seems unlikely to me, but of course it wouldn’t be an issue if we scrapped the farcical winter transfer window anyway. Let’s just hope that this time they’ve slammed it shut so hard we won’t be able to get the blasted thing back open again next year. Let’s face it who wants the windows open in winter anyway?
