Finally – at long long last – the agents are starting to feel the bite after bleeding Premier League clubs nearly dry over the last six or seven years.
This January saw a fairly dramatic fall in expenditure and that is clearly a knock on from the years of absurd spending fired up by those greedy representatives.
The BBC reports that “Premier League January spending fell for the first time since 2012 with a quiet deadline day capping off a relatively low-spending window.
Deadline-day and January spending were less than half of last year’s totals, with 12 deals on 31 January totalling £50m – bringing the month’s spending to £180m, according to figures from the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.
January 2018 saw £430m spent by Premier League clubs, with £150m on deadline day alone.”
There will obviouly always be the moaning and groaning from fans that we didn’t spend enough but the problem is not simply restricted to West Ham.
OK, clubs such as Manchester City which are in reality owned by foreign countries will always be able to dig up more and more dough and there’s no competing with those situations anyway.
But what we saw last month was clubs allowing themselves to be held to ransom and acting entirely sensibly as they addressed their transfer window spends.
Yes, we like everybody else, needed positions filled; at left back and up front notably but when you are being quoted wages of £170k for a Chelsea striker (Mishubayi) plus another £3 million in loan and agents’ fees? Nah don’t think so.
We’ll leave that to Palace who have a gift with strikers – Benteke etc!
For me the reduced spend in the window was brilliant and should – if they are not stupid or greedy enough to get it – have sent a serious message to the agents who are genuinely wrecking our game.
January is a terrible time to buy players and it really is time to assess the whole thing. I’d love to see it scrapped completely or reduced to a week because that’s when all the business is done anyway.
And it could well reduce the income going out of the clubs even more and leaving them in a much more stable situation along with the squads who don’t have the issues surrounding key players bugging them for four weeks.
They are vampires and a blight on the game.
I agree. Think the January window should be scrapped as far as buying is concerned but available to loans only. Summer window for sales. Winter window for emergency loans. So clubs would only use the January window if they have key players injured for the rest of the season etc or they are desperate to avoid relegation.
Remember it’s not over til it’s over. Transfer window may be closed but next up is the “free agent” window. This years free agents include Ya Ya Toure and Patrice Evra of course.
Agree agents are parasites in the game.but that could have been written by the owners .always excuses for not spending.yes we have at least 9 players to come back but when ? Balbuena is about a month away so what happens if ogbonna or diop get injured ? Rice can go they but then we lose our best player in midfield.all our forwards if you believe what you put on here are either de motivated .not good enough ect .so we needed at least 2 players in just to boost the squad .frankly as always aload of tosh on why we didn’t do Anything
Well it wasn;’t written by the bloody owners. It was written by me and if it falls into line with what they may think so be it.Complain at the end of the season if you feel you need to. Til then 31 points virtually safe and no need. Got any players in mind we could have bought?
I’ve said it many times and even said it a few days ago :: the January Window should be completely Scrapped . Nothing else to add .
❣️My heart…..bleeding for them.
No need for that Hugh. I don’t think 8586 was implying you didn’t write it, more that it may well have been an excuse, or reason the owners could have used to explain the January relative inactivity.
I’m sure there was no slur aimed in your direction.
Markro. Exactly what i was saying👍