SEPT 4 — As I write this, the transfer window for English Premier League clubs has just closed, and fans all over the world are getting excited over the last-minute deals that’s been happening for their beloved clubs.
Football pundits have always complained about the transfer window for buying and selling players which closes after the season has already begun in England. There is a healthy number of people out there who’d prefer to see all transfer dealings end before the start of the season.
Arguments for that camp include the unfair advantage that richer clubs will have over the smaller and less well-off clubs. This basically means that they can just choose to get rid of any weak links in their squad that they have failed to notice before the team has started playing a few games at the start of the season and just buy better players to fill that gap.
Small and poor clubs obviously won’t have this luxury, and in some circumstances they can be further disadvantaged by losing some of their players to the big boys and not have enough funds to buy a suitable replacement.
Arguments against that camp simply go along the lines that other major leagues in Europe do not start as early as in England, and to close the transfer window while the other leagues can still buy and sell players (and buy a player or two from England as well) will just be a disadvantage to English clubs.
Whatever your opinion may be on the matter, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the season has now truly started. Everyone’s stuck with the bunch of players they have now until the next transfer window in January 2011, and will have to make do with whatever weaknesses that still exist in their squads until then. So the chess moves amongst the managers can really begin in earnest now.
Being a Spurs fan, I was hoping that we’d sign a lone-striker type for our Champions League adventure this year (how nice it is to finally be able to say that, hehehe). The 3-0 drubbing we got during the first half of our Champions League qualifying match against Swiss side the Young Boys of Berne (gotta love that name!) should’ve clearly demonstrated that going with a gung-ho English 4-4-2 formation away from home in Europe is not necessarily the smartest thing to do.
Almost all the English clubs who are Champions League regulars have gone for the safer 4-5-1 formation when playing away from home in Europe, in which possession is key, and where the main battle usually happens in midfield.
A different type of striker is needed in this type of matches, someone who is comfortable playing alone up front and can still be dangerous and cause much annoyance to the opposition’s defenders.
Of all the strikers on our books, only Peter Crouch and maybe Roman Pavlyuchenko have shown some signs that they’ll be capable of performing well in that role. It would’ve been great if we got someone who’s clearly used to that role and has been proven to be pretty good at it like Luis Fabiano and maybe even Miroslav Klose.
I’m pleasantly surprised that we’ve managed to get Rafael Van Der Vaart though. It was something totally out of the blue and that’s not even mentioned in the transfer gossip columns.
But here we are, with a midfielder who might actually be as good as Wesley Sneijder, and who has cost us a very reasonable £8 million (RM40 million) only. There are countless other inferior players who’ve cost four or five million more than that. And for that I shall be happy with Harry Redknapp’s wheeling and dealing skills.
Maybe having a midfielder of that class will help us win those all-important midfield battles in the Champions League. Of course there’s also the feeling that with a midfield already consisting of Modric, Huddlestone, Kranjcar, Lennon, Bale, Palacios and Sandro, we’ve just bought a player we don’t necessarily need but is nice to have anyway because of the good value. Time will tell whether this will be a good piece of business or not.
My second team, Liverpool (mostly because Roy Hodgson manages them now), have also not been doing so hot these days. Uncle Woy has been doing his usual solid but low-profile signings, but failing to sign a proper back-up for Fernando Torres will mean that the inconsistent and still unconvincing David Ngog is their only recognisable back-up striker. And that is a failure that might come back to haunt them big time.
It’s going to be fun (and heart-stopping) to look at the table in the next few months. I’ve a feeling this will be yet another wobbly season for all but the very top clubs like Chelsea and Manchester United, with Wigan already teaching us to never underestimate anyone. Even potential disaster zones like Newcastle United have surprised everyone. Let the games begin.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.