The pitfalls of the transfer window January 07 2008
The January transfer window is generally a time of trepidation for football fans. Clubs tend to panic buy, looking for short-term solutions to long-term problems - a tactic that backfires more often than not.
There are seldom any decent players on the market so journeymen, unproven youngsters and unknown quantities abound. We take a look at some of the January transfer window prototypes as a warning to clubs on who not to buy.
1) The 'living in the past' player
This fine specimen usually landed a contract with a 'big' club early in his career, when his lack of skill still masqueraded as potential. Now pushing thirty, your average LITPP has been following a downward trajectory ever since his glorious early days, but is still milking the fact that he once commanded a £10m transfer fee for all it's worth.
Managers might fool themselves by remembering that cracking goal he scored as a 19-year-old against Notts County in the League Cup, conveniently forgetting that in the intervening years he has averaged three goals a season while being his club's designated penalty taker.
The LITPS's key abilities include counter-attacking with the speed of a startled tortoise, missing absolute sitters and berating midfielders for not setting him up perfectly. Heaven forbid he might have to do some work himself.
Key exponents: Francis Jeffers, Emile Heskey and Eric Djemba Djemba
2) The perpetual sicknote
Nothing annoys fans more than a permanently injured player, especially if it's still his first season at the club. What rankles most is that, in the real world where the fans live, phoning in sick for six months at a time leads directly to the job centre, not to an extended contract and all the massages you can handle.
There's a particular delusion amongst football managers that they will be the one to sort out the player's health and fitness problems with a bit of application, some discipline and a dash of motivation. This is wrong.
Certain human bodies were just not made for the rigours of football. Signing a player who will feature in perhaps one out of ten games is counter-productive, even if they have the skills of Pele and Maradona's illicit love-child.
Key exponents: Louis Saha, Ledley King, Michael Owen
3) The instigator
The type of player who could start a mass brawl in a nunnery. Every manager believes that he is different, that his ideas of rigorous discipline and a firm hand on the tiller will sort out the problem player in no time. The next thing they know team morale is but a distant memory and they're picking cigars out of a youth player's cornea.
Sociopaths never make good team players, neither do insecure, violence prone mummy's boys who set cats alight in their free time.
Players like these will split a dressing room faster than a fat man does a pair of tight trousers, resulting in a plummet down the table and the manager's eventual downfall.
Key exponents: Craig Bellamy, Joey Barton and Dennis Wise
4) The 'on the cheap from the Champo' player
Beloved of managers in their first season in the top flight, the memory of being ripped apart by a Championship striker the previous season causing all reason and logic to go the way of their transfer kitty.
If you're struggling to compete with the top clubs who pay millions of pounds for a striker, buying five players from Burnley is hardly going to bring you parity, let alone the respect and admiration of the fans.
Some players are just not good enough for the top-flight.
Key exponents: Gregorz Raziak, James Beattie and David Nugent
Justin Zehmke