Planet Swans ArchivesJames was at Leeds. Fer was in Lille and then he was at Villa. Montero ended at West Brom and Carroll ended up at Villa. Those were the significant developments on a day when we were linked with moves for pretty much nobody (The Doncaster striker link never made it past Wales Online and the Andy King link was nothing more than media logically seeing our normal transfer day activity)
James to Leeds never happened and he was filmed driving away in the same car that he was filmed in arriving earlier in the day and Fer to Villa became a non starter although they did manage to snag one of our midfielders in Carroll.
The dust though is settling this morning on yesterday’s events and whilst Leeds fans can bemoan the inability to finish the deal we can at least enjoy the fact that we have retained one of our key prospects for the future – at least for now.
The stark reality of the day though is that our transfer dealings remain a total shambles and yet we retain the personnel in place to continue making those mistakes. Between Jenkins, Kaplan and Levien we sit and watch club’s hunt around in our bargain basement and find the absolute gems. Most of the time they can get them on loan thus saving nice transfer budgets for other purchases of their own and if they are really lucky we also contribute to the cost of the players for them as well.
Meanwhile we hunt out our own targets (or at least we did in the summer, there is NO evidence that we did it in January) and run away at the moment that a real transfer price is put on people’s heads and continue to bring in players who, largely, do not fit into our team and spend much of the season either on the bench or not even in the matchday squad. This isn’t unlucky transfer activity it is pure ineptitude and probably one of the best examples of that you can get.
We did it in the summer of 2017 when we allowed the departure of Gylfi to drag on to such a level that we could only panic and wasted the biggest pot of money anyone will ever have on the likes of Sam Clucas. We paid vastly inflated fees and wages for the second time purchase of Wilfried Bony and Andre Ayew when it was obvious to anyone that their best days at that level were past them. And last summer we watched as we scrambled around losing top quality players for peanuts and failing miserably as a result of that to get our wage bill on an even keel which led us to yesterday’s laughable events where it almost seemed if the player wasn’t nailed down then a sale was a very distinct possibility.
Even the players noticed it with tweets from Conor Roberts and Ollie McBurnie deleted as quick as they were tweeted but not before the likes of Match of the Day had picked up on them
Players are being heavily censored tonight.. https://t.co/7HBdxpq6wS
— Planet Swans (@swansnews) January 31, 2019
Quite simply those in charge of our transfer policy at the club are making a shambolic job of managing it and it was clear to all of us yesterday that there was never a plan to support the manager with no efforts made to have replacements in. You only need to look at the fact that James and Fer were both heading out until the last minute to know that this is true.
We could, quite easily, try and defend the policy and we fully support the need to run the club prudently within it’s means. However, when you sit and watch that turning into a procession where players can only head one way (out) and the executives at the top continue with their highly inflated salaries you know that the business of a football club is not the top priority of those making the decisions.
The reactions of the fans yesterday were strong and understandable and we cannot become blinkered or applaud the fact that two players stayed as any good dealing by those in charge. There was a clear desire to do these deals even in so much as we had already started the narratives of their desire to leave. Now if those narratives were so true then the manager has been handed a huge task to keep them happy today. The players wanted to leave because we wanted them to leave as well, completely different narrative that one.
The only good news is that now players cannot leave again until the summer by which time we can only hope that we have professionals in charge of transfer dealings and a clear desire to support the manager not undermine his good work in making the most out of what he is being left with.
It is now onto Bristol City tomorrow and the support for the team but supporting those in charge becomes almost impossible after another shambolic transfer window. And of course the silence that always follows every shambles.
<#lufc #avfc #backtojack>
