‘How’s it feel to be small?’ A rhetorical question Arsenal fans used to sing to celebrate the club’s signing of Mesut Özil and the departure of Gareth Bale from Tottenham. It hasn’t been heard recently.
The final days of the summer and winter transfer windows are two of the biggest days in the English footballing calendar. The Premier League’s appeal is in no small part down to these days of hope, fear, disappointment and possibility. Nothing is worse than losing a top player, nothing better than gaining one. Even better if the player is not English, is based abroad, their potential infinite, or at least as yet unquantified, their name conjuring up not a young man who has played well in Rotterdam or San Sebastian, but enigmatic exoticism and future glory.
Much of the promise proves illusory – Fulham were widely considered to have ‘won’ the last summer window. Some of the players they signed had a scattering of that mystical appeal -Schürrle was a world cup winner, Seri had been near to a move to Barcelona only twelve months earlier, Vietto was coming from Atletico Madrid and is a wonderfully skilful player on his day – some of them less so (sorry Alfie Mawson) – all have disappointed. The club’s season has been one long hangover from the giddy, expensive highs of last August. No glory here, only the scars of failure on the players and a season in the second tier to plan for. And that’s only the start of the story, transfers and their associated costs, salaries especially, are a long-term commitment. It can take many years for a club to recover from ill-judged or unlucky purchases. Ask Norwich about Ricky van Wolfswinkel.
So, to Arsenal, Tottenham and Real Madrid. Now that the contracts signed that day have lapsed or been novated, can we establish who won that transfer window?
Arsenal were delighted to have signed Özil and he made an immediate impact, setting up four goals in his first two league games. Since then his trajectory has pretty much tracked Arsenal’s, up-ish for a couple of years, then down. He’s created – and scored – some good goals, he’s won the FA Cup multiple times and played over two hundred times for the club. All pretty respectable, but he did not fulfil the brief, which was helping to propel the club back to the top of the league, helping them compete in the Champions League. He has also become a financial millstone since signing a new deal last year, appearing less frequently, making less of an impact this year than last. He’s now a squad player.
Real Madrid were equally pleased with the capture of Bale. His first season brought some brilliant displays and crucial goals in domestic and European cup finals. He has subsequently provided more defining moments, especially in the Champions League, winning it three more times in four years. But, looking back, it is perhaps his first three months, when he struggled with injuries and failed to play ninety minutes on a regular basis, that have become more indicative of his time in Madrid. He has suffered eighteen separate injuries, missing a season’s worth of games over the last five years. Bad luck? Yes, but fans don’t like unlucky players, they hold them in contempt. Bale’s season has mirrored Özil’s – he too is now an expensive squad player, unloved by the fans and unwanted by the manager.
Spurs spent much of that summer spending the money they expected for Bale, with mixed results. Only two of the players brought in remain at the club, Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen. The latter has been brilliant and in his own subtle way has perhaps created a bigger legacy than Bale left behind. Others turned out to be decent players, just not in North London, Paulinho especially.
What can be divined from it all? That all three clubs, and the players themselves, succeeded, all ‘won’ but not as much as they expected to in those exhilarating hours, when hopes were at their highest. That, after all the build-up, after exorbitant sums have changed hands, after we have seen the reality of the goods purchased; their good moments and bad, their successes and failures, after injuries and time have taken their toll, that all transfers are inevitably disappointing.
Perhaps. Transfers are a financial investment, but moreso of hope. Football is a projection of this hope; it requires empathy, connection for an attachment to form, for meaning to be created. It’s a team sport, played in front of thousands of people, watched at home by millions more. No matter the excellence of the player, a massive transfer fee can, and often does, interfere with these connections. It’s an ugly reminder of the mercenary nature of the sport.
Roberto Soldado was purchased by Spurs to help make up for Bale’s absence, to procure points by scoring goals. He did not deliver. But his failures in front of goal, along with the diminishing impact of Adebayor, another expensively sourced player, forced Pochettino to give Harry Kane his chance. Kane’s goals, mingled with his background as an academy graduate, have turned him into an organic star, not transplanted, not purchased, but grown. He is unlikely to win the Champions League with Spurs, but his goals, his successes, will always be more meaningful – more human – than a comparable player bought for a hundred million.
Fioruisce 