The January Window is for Fools.
Andrey Arshavin was our last good signing in the January transfer window. It took until February, and it almost didn’t happen in the end, but we got the little meerkat. We smashed our transfer record, and walked away happy.
So there is potential in the month of madness and mild annoyance. But you can’t seriously expect to conclude a deal, start to finish in 31 days. And you definitely don’t want to bank on knocking it out of the park with any form of consistency.
Signing a player, especially a high calibre one, takes multiple weeks to pull off at the best of times. It’s just how the business works. Since time is at such a premium in January, everything is accelerated and inflated. A centre back worth £5m in July becomes £17m in January. A player’s wage demands are likely to bump. Everybody gets greedy, because if you’re in a tight spot with only four weeks to do anything about it, you’re going to have to pay.
There’s a lot more to it than picking up a phone and rattling off some numbers.
Mesut Ozil signed on the summer deadline day. Alexis Sanchez’s transfer stretched late into August. Both took months to organize. These are our two best players, and Arsène Wenger personally moved mountains to get them both. Both superstars commanded large fees, and both required some convincing to come to North London.
Almost any player we do or don’t end up signing will have a price tag they simply don’t merit. Why do you think most of the biggest signings in football are in the summer? Manchester City paid just under £40m for Sergio Aguero in the summer of 2011. Imagine how much more they would have forked over to Atletico Madrid in the winter? Suddenly a four turns to a six, and you’re left wondering where your oil money has gone.
It’s just not good business.
This is why I want Dick Law locked up in Steve Bould’s trunk until February 1. Give him some twizzlers and a Skype account for tying up that Bielik kid, and let that be that. If we want to add one centre back, so be it. But you and I know that Arsène, Steve Rowley and co. are going to have one hell of a time finding and signing the the damn unicorn that is a world class, brick shit house with a sprinkle of Paddy Vieira defensive midfielder.
The simple reason is that they simply do not exist. Not for less than half a fortune. Nemanja Matic reportedly cost just north of £20m. Javi Martinez and Fernandinho both rang in around £30m. Not only are quality defensive players a dime a dozen and expensive, they’re hard to pry from the hands of their current clubs.
Another problem. Anybody who has decent tackling and possession stats can command north of £20m in today’s markets. You can thank YouTube for that. Not a good thing, considering we’ve only paid more than that for two of the world’s absolute best attacking talents, and no one else.
I don’t want a DM, because we’ll invariably end up paying £13m for Jeremy Toulalan’s corpse, or Flamini’s younger brother. January is a waste of time.
