The January transfer window is the junior varsity of transfer periods. It’s Diet Signing Period, the kids’ menu, a cliff notes version of the real transfer period. The summer transfer window is an aircraft carrier, while the January transfer window is a row boat.
Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp had a summer transfer window that was much maligned, because Sadio Mane was the only true big money buy, and the closest deal to a major brand name player acquisition. However, as the season progressed, Klopp’s summer transfer business looked brilliant.
The Reds rocketed up to second place entering the holidays and the festive period, but with Mane off to play in the Africa Cup of Nations, Liverpool is struggling, now having fallen down to fourth. It only reinforces Mane’s worth the team, and perhaps makes a case that Anfield’s summer business was stellar.
No transfer business of major note has gotten done this month, and there’s no real cause for optimism that changes between now and the window closure in eight days. Club legend and newly minted youth coach Steven Gerrard suggested his club go get Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, but he Stevie G. realizes the obstacles that could get in the way of that.
“I understand it is absolutely normal that people ask whether we should have brought players in,” Klopp said to the media.
“The situation is yes, on the one side pretty simple, but on the other hand it is pretty difficult.”
“It is not that we don’t want to bring players in — we do — but the thing is, the players we want because we think they help us, the clubs don’t sell. It is not about money in this situation, it is the winter transfer window.
“Clubs are saying: ‘No, we have half a year to go. We cannot find another player like this. We prefer to take money in the summer than a few pounds more in the winter than whatever.’ So it is pretty easy.”
“You see the situation.”
“It’s tight, it’s close, we know that, but if the right decision is not possible in signing the right player then you cannot make the wrong transfer.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, Bold and the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication, appears regularly as a guest on CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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