Findings from the Transfer Window

 

The summer transfer window was closed on the 5th of October, as signings across Europe ended. Despite the massive impact the coronavirus has had on the financial side of the game, clubs across Europe were still able to spend on new players with minimal fuss. So, he are my thoughts surrounding the summer transfer window that ended.

The Premier League still has money to burn

When the coronavirus pandemic started to spread around the world, it was going to have a big impact on football and its finances. Fans are not going to games to affect every team's income from matchday and, the change of schedule from last season meant that clubs will have to take to cut from broadcasters. However, the Premier League were still able to pull their financial might across, as all 20 Premier League clubs spent over a billion pounds on permanent signings. That is a drop from last year, which was at 1.4 billion pounds. This summer transfer window was one that many thought will have not a high amount of business, due to the pandemic. Chelsea spent the most out of anyone in the Premier League with 226 million pounds while Burnley were the only team that failed to make a permanent signing. Manchester City, Aston Villa, Leeds United and Wolves made up the top five spenders but Wolves, Manchester City, Liverpool, Leicester City and West Ham United were the biggest receivers of money from their players. This transfer window, according to Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville, was one were the 'top 6' had a massive advantage over the rest. Although every team is impacted in one way from the pandemic, the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs are all financial powerhouses and will not be as hurt from the crisis like others. Hence why Chelsea were able to get Ben Chilwell for 50 million pounds from Leicester City, as Leicester could have forced Chelsea to pay even more, like they did with Manchester United for Harry Maguire last year for 80 million pounds. It is clear that the Premier League still has the financial pull that the rest of Europe envies and a financial crisis does not affect that.

United have no game in the transfer window

Manchester United qualified for the Champions League last season and, they were planning to make some big business over the window. Well, the transfer window has passed, and United are left with a pie on their face as they had a horrible transfer window. They signed three players over the summer from Donny van der Beek, Alex Telles and Edinson Cavani but much more was meant to be done at Old Trafford. The strory of United's transfer window was the saga of Jadon Sancho. The Red Devils were heavily linked to sign the Englishman from Borussia Dortmund and had already agreed personal terms with English winger. However, they were unable to agree a fee with Dortmund for his services and despite the continuing murmurings of a deal agreed between the two clubs, nothing happened with Sancho still in a Dortmund shirt and United have their tail between their legs. Even if they got Jadon Sancho, Manchester United needed to do a lot of incomings and outcomings. From the need of getting a centre-back and a defensive midfielder to removing the deadwood that remains in the United squad like Phil Jones and Sergio Romero. Ole Gunnar Solskkjaer and Ed Woodward have raised more questions than answers as they failed to capitalize from last season and could struggle to finish in the top four again this season.

Different Plans for Real Madrid and Barcelona

Barcelona and Real Madrid have had contrasting windows. Real Madrid, surprisingly, did very little with incomings from the transfer window. Instead, they concentrated more on getting rid of some of the players they have on their books. They have let go of James Rodriguez to Everton, Gareth Bale went on loan to Tottenham, Sergio Reguilon also joined Bale at Tottenham while Achraf Hakimi went to Italy to join Inter Milan. Barcelona, on the other hand, had to do a lot of transfer business despite their financial situation. The important dealings for the Catalan club was getting rid off players from the wage bill. Ivan Rakitic, Arturo Vidal and Luis Suarez have left the club, saving Barcelona money on the wage bill as they were one of the club's highest earners. Barcelona got over a hundred million euros for Nelson Semedo and Arthur but signed thirty year-old midfielder Miralem Pjanic for sixty million euros. They also had to reduce the average age of their squad, signing young players in Trincao from Braga and Sergino Dest from Ajax. Both teams were affected from the pandemic, and have plans to renovate their stadia, so money was going to be short anyway. For Madrid, their squad is big and the long game for them is signing Kylian Mbappe. As for Barcelona, they had to do business now after a poor 2019/2020 season, and they manage to do that. Will that help their chances of winning La Liga? Who knows.

Finding Good Value for Squad building

This year's summer transfer window is one where teams have to find good value for their money as they cannot recklessly spend like they did in the past. It also means finding value on squad players as teams will have to increase their squad size for this season given how compressed it is. The big examples is Liverpool and Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich won the treble last season but suffered difficulties on improving their squad depth. They have let go of Thiago, Perisic and Coutinho but were able to add some depth with the likes of Leroy Sane, Douglas Costa, Marc Roca and Alex Nubel coming in. Liverpool also improved their squad depth signing Thiago, Diogo Jota and Kontas Tsimikas. This season is going to be a short and compressed one so signing squad players to improve your squad is arguably more important than signing big money players.