Early Transfer Deadline | Madness or just the Premier league at it's best
If there is one thing that has split opinions like no other this season, it’s the transfer deadline. It is the one thing that has split the league, that has dominated pressers and Premier League sides and their managers need to move on before it becomes an irritating staple of the beautiful game.
14 August 2017 was a record-shattering, path-breaking and a day that is now considered to be the 'biggest mistake' that English football will ever or has ever made. Why you may ask, and the answer is a simple one, it was when the Premier League decided to close the transfer window before the season starts. It's a decision that has now been considered to be a bad one by a select group of managers, because it was exactly when nearly all 20 clubs in the English top-flight met and opted to shut down the summer window before the first ball is kicked.
While the 2017 summer window closed on the 31 of August, the 2018 one did not and that marked a change. For the first time in forever, the window closed before the league ever started, giving a new lease of life to the league. And it had a partner in crime via the Serie A, with them also closing before the season started. What it simply meant was that Premier League managers now wouldn’t be able to buy/bring in new talent once the first ball is kicked.
It meant that for once in their life, bureaucrats had used this pre-installed god-given device called common sense and levelled the playing field. It meant that the little fish finally had someone fighting for them and it was someone who knew just what to do to help them survive. Because by moving up the date by just three weeks, it made the difference between life and death for the little minnows of the English league and that on its own has improved the league.
At the same time, it also saw the Premier League flex it’s rather incredible and jaw-dropping muscles, telling the world it won’t budge and they need to fall in line. Now for the first and now second time this season, Premier League sides didn’t have to worry about the world around them once the season kicked off. They had the players they needed at the club, there were no worries as to whether or not anyone would leave once the season started unless the manager dumped them out.
But more importantly, it meant that the selling clubs for once are in full control. Or atleast had somewhere around 20 odd percent more control over who they could, would and wanted to sell. The players could have their say, but unlike the 2018 Christian Eriksen and the 2019 Christian Eriksen, few in the world would ever want to leave the greatest league in the world. Yet it has seen managers crib about the window, crib about the deadline being pulled back, crib about the fact that the rest of Europe hasn’t followed suit.
Which in a way does make a lot of sense, especially with Italy reverting back to it’s original August 31/September 2 deadline now. It also meant that situations like Eriksen’s, Paul Pogba, Wilfried Zaha and even Alexis Sanchez exist. But at the same time, it also means that situations like Wilfried Zaha's, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Virgil Van Dijk, Ross Barkley and Fernando Torres would have never existed.
But that can never be used as an excuse. Not when the world of transfers is a year-long business, a never-ending cycle of buying, selling and then scouting players to buy before eventually selling them. It’s a vicious cycle but it’s one that every club takes part with their own levels of excitement and success, which is wherein the real problem arises. But that’s a debate for another day.
Yet it’s being used as an excuse, with managers even going on to say that they were not prepared for this, they were not happy with the decision to pull the window back and it drags the conversation back into relevance! It’s a senseless argument especially when you consider that clubs have most of May, June and July to do their deals. So if three months are not enough, alongside a century-long scouting mission, then what will the extra month do?
It simply piles on the pressure, adds to the drama and unsettles clubs. While as a fan all that is rather nice to watch, as a fan it also hurts like hell when it’s your club on the wrong side. It also adds to the “will he, won’t he” saga, which has now been curbed to a certain extent and brought about some tranquillity to a sordid business.
And for a lot of clubs, pulling back the deadline drew a line in the sand, gave them a fighting chance, which is just what the league needs. It gives the tiny men a chance against the clubs whose defence budget is now bigger than 16 countries. And isn’t that just what the Premier League is all about?
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