The winter transfer window is designed for desperados. In most leading leagues, it falls in mid-season, as a device by which clubs can try to correct wretched planning the previous summer, or cover for a surprise rash of injuries, or shoo away unwanted or unhappy employees.
If a club’s poor planning has been really dire, and long enough lines of credit can be tapped, it is the well from which to construct a new strategy entirely, though it would usually be built haphazardly around a handful of players swiftly rummaged together.
January signings typically come with fewer guarantees than targets who have been stalked, scouted and thoroughly analysed ahead of a summer bid. It is always advisable, in the New Year, to read the small print.
Even the grandest clubs have been known to overlook it, as they hurriedly act in a window that is shorter than the June-to-September trading period.
Witness Real Madrid, who, in a panic about their failure to maintain the standards that yielded consecutive Spanish league titles in 2007 and 2008, splashed out more than €40 million (Dh202 million) on reinforcements in early 2009.
They went for a savvy, combative central midfielder, the France international Lassana Diarra, and an expert finisher, Holland’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. They hoped this pair would not only stabilise a wobbly domestic campaign, but help lift a four-year-long problem the club had in progressing beyond the last-16 stage in the Uefa Champions League.
The signings had some calibre. But Madrid’s administrative research was flawed.
Because of Uefa rules of the time, Madrid learnt after the deals were made that they were permitted to register one player who had played in the Uefa Cup that season – and not both of them, for European games for the remainder of the campaign. By March, they had crashed out of the Champions League in the knock-out round yet again.
The riskiest mid-season newcomer is the one who disrupts routines.
At Newcastle United, fans still talk about the charge for the Premier League title in 1996/97 derailing after New Year and the difficulties of integrating the mercurial Colombian striker, Faustino Asprilla, into a team that held a 12-point lead in the table in January.
Asprilla was an individualist. A common opinion is that, though brilliant at times, he obliged the team to alter tactically, and they lost their earlier momentum as a result. Newcastle finished second, overhauled by Manchester United.
Without exposure to pre-season practice, where a squad’s playing styles are established, principles set and fitness regimens applied, a January arrival has to play catch-up quickly. He must insert himself aggressively into the team’s habitual manoeuvres, and at the same time, take care not to come across as too starry to colleagues with whom an intense professional relationship must be nurtured.
Might Fernando Torres, who was transferred to Chelsea from Liverpool for a soaring £50 million (Dh303 million) in January 2011, have found the initiation smoother had he moved to London in a June or July, at the outset of a project, rather than being parachuted in with the pressure to score goals in abundance, as he had in his first seasons at Anfield?
Two years on from that startlingly costly transfer, Torres remains an inconsistent centre-forward, in and out of Chelsea’s first XI. And it is hardly encouraging for him that his employers are so openly pursuing reinforcements for his position, urgently, and once again in a January window.
sports@thenational.ae
Turkish Ladies
Various artists, Sony Music Turkey
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
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