The January transfer window is an unusual beast; the kind that turns up in your garden once a year, snarls at you for 30 days, howls and gesticulates wildly for another 24 hours before disappearing as abruptly as it arrived. It leaves you feeling surprisingly underwhelmed that it decided not to try and rip off your face after spending the last month relentlessly flirting with the idea.
Indeed, the January window’s bark is a lot worse than its bite. The tabloids continually churn out audacious rumours and managers make hints at shock last minute deals, but when all boiled down, the remaining reduction is Marc Wilson signing for West Brom on loan. Not exactly Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, is it?
Of course, there are exceptions – in January 2013, Brendan Rodgers sealed some of the best business in Liverpool’s recent history by snapping up Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho for less than £25million combined. Two years before that, Chelsea signed Fernando Torres for a club-record £50million, and the Reds responded by spending £10million more on Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez.
In truth, there isn’t a consistent pattern to January in the same way as the summer – as our infographic shows. Although winter fees paid in the Premier League have steadily risen, there’s no real correlation in terms of largest fees paid, average fees per player, the number of signings and departures or, perhaps most significantly, net spend.
During its off-season counterpart, on the other hand, the Premier League has broken its collective spending record every summer for as long as anybody can remember, whilst summer 2016 saw 13 different clubs set new record transfer fees.
But even amid the prevailing trend of inconsistency, January 2017 particularly stands out. It’s the first transfer window in which the Premier League has finished up with a net profit rather than a net spend, although the collective spend in real terms did surpass its predecessors, whilst the number of departures and arrivals were almost exactly half from twelve months previous – which, again, was a significant reduction on the year before.
The overall lack of activity was epitomised by a completely lifeless Deadline Day, which suffered all-the-more for having seven Premier League fixtures in the evening. Only 13 signings were made throughout the entire 24 hours, with just eight clubs involved, and only seven moved on permanent deals.
So, what does that tell us about changing opinions towards the mid-season window in the Premier League?
“It was never such a low activity level across Europe – basically nothing happened,” he said. “It shows still that financial fair play had an impact, for sure, because we have the experience of seasons before. It pushes even more an idea forward – let’s completely get rid of [the transfer window], and go from season to season with the same players.
“Yes [I would scrap January transfers] because it can disturb the cohesion of a group within the season. When the players don’t play in October or the end of September, they already think that they may move in January. You lose them and in our job it’s important that everybody is on board. I find the transfer window [a disturbance].”
Arsene Wenger, February 2016
Is the January window becoming redundant?
Some managers, such as Arsene Wenger, have never been particularly supportive of the winter window and seemingly avoid it as a point of principle, unless their hand has been forced by injuries or departures. So the idea of having no mid-season window is certainly nothing new, and would certainly receive backing from some quarters of the Premier League.
On the surface, the statistics provide ideal ammunition for the January-window-Ney-sayers. As already mentioned, the number of players arriving in the Premier League has steadily declined over the last six years, whilst departures have also fallen over the last four years. And of course, the first ever collective profit for a Premier League window feels incredibly significant – especially following a summer in which the division broke the £1billion spent mark for the first time. A complete contrast.
Yet, the window still clearly serves a purpose, with 72 players joining Premier League clubs and 79 moving on to pastures new. The real difference between 2017 and its forbearers, however, was at the top end of the table; from the top six, only Arsenal and Manchester City made any signings, the Gunners acquiring non-league youngster Cohen Bramall at the whopping cost of £40k and Gabriel Jesus arriving at the Etihad Stadium after City agreed a deal with Palmeiras in the summer. Not exactly January signings in the traditional sense of the phrase.
The bottom six, meanwhile, three of which have changed managers since the start of December, spent the exact amount as the Premier League’s remaining 14 teams. The idea of those struggling for survival spending more and making more signings is hardly illogical, but it shows the January window is still seen as valuable by those at the less glamorous end of the top flight.
Was January 2017 an anomaly?
Bearing in mind the uniqueness of the 2016/17 Premier League season, which saw three new managers arrive at three of its biggest clubs last summer, the January window’s deviating statistics – particularly, the net profit – may have been anomalous.
After all, practically every top-six club has the feel of a work-in-progress at the moment with the exception of Chelsea, who have the least motivation to buy of any club in the whole division as they sit nine points clear at the Premier League’s summit.
Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United are all steadily moving towards very specific philosophies that they hope to have finely tuned in time for next year, and with the Blues already so far ahead, it makes sense for them to wait until the summer when they’ll have more time to broker deals for players fitting those philosophies, rather than taking a gamble mid-season in the hope of catching Antonio Conte’s runaway pace-setters.
That does insinuate that the title race is already over, but such long-termism doesn’t tend to last in the Premier League. It may have curtailed January 2017, but the likes of Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho will almost certainly be more open to spending if they’re in the same position this time next year.
Nonetheless, the fact the top six was the Premier League’s least busy mini-league by far, and that four didn’t make any signings whatsoever, suggests that if not a prevailing trend, there is certainly a shared opinion amongst the big boys. At the same time, for so many teams in transition, its surprising to see such little interest in bringing in new players.
Is the January window being utilised differently?
Clearly, we’ve now reached a point where Premier League clubs, especially those near the top, are well aware of the risks that come with mid-season acquisitions, mainly because January has always been more of a seller’s market – meaning they’re essentially held to ransom over potential fees. That’s only been further amplified by the new £8bn TV deal, which saw foreign clubs demand some frankly outrageous figures for their star players during the summer.
Whilst consequentially there wasn’t much action on the inward front, the top six still kept themselves busy in terms of outgoings, moving on 40 players – half of the division’s entire departure outlay – either in loan deals or permanently. Indeed, it seems Arsenal, Chelsea and company now view January as an opportunity to move on the dead wood, rather than increasing the options at their manager’s disposal.
The greatest examples were at Manchester United and Chelsea. The Red Devils managed to recoup the majority of their original investments in Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin, despite the duo clocking up just 31 minutes of league action combined under Jose Mourinho, and even inserted a buyback clause into the former’s departure. It seems unlikely they would’ve enjoyed such luck during the summer, after both had spent an entire campaign rotting in the reserves, when cheaper alternatives would likely be more available.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s sale of Oscar to Shanghai SIPG for £60million highlighted perhaps the most important changing dynamic of all – the increasing influence of the Chinese Super League. 2016 ushered in the Far Eastern top flight’s first major transfer window, but the twelve months until 2017 allowed Premier League teams time to truly take advantage of its incredible financial influx.
Alongside Oscar, the sale of Odion Ighalo put £80million in Premier League coffers. Although it’s logical to assume Chelsea and Watford would have received decent enough fees for both players, that £80million is more than the difference between the Premier League’s average net spend over the previous five Januarys, £57million, and the £13million surplus of 2017.
In truth, one window alone probably isn’t enough to determine whether attitudes towards the January window are genuinely changing in the Premier League, but what do you think 2017 tells us?