Fernandes gamble right but Man Utd have added to pressure

Matt Stead

Man Utd have been reticent to use the January window since Ferguson’s reign. Bruno Fernandes could exorcise those demons…

It was in December 2012, in the midst of Sir Alex Ferguson’s final winter before retirement, that he would deliver a line that has instructed and informed Manchester United’s player recruitment plans in the seven years since.

“The January transfer market has never been the best market and that has proved itself over the years. You get very few big transfers – all the big transfers are done in the summer.”

That is the accepted wisdom, largely decided not long after the mid-season market’s inception in 2003 and only reinforced in the intervening years. It encourages panicking clubs to spend lavish amounts on false solutions. It makes other sides vulnerable to a level of unwanted disruption and distraction that can derail an entire campaign. It allows agents to hawk their wares as players are commodified beyond justification. It contradicts the very essence of what a transfer window should be: the culmination of long-term scouting and planning.

United in particular refuse to accept the exceptions. A club that welcomed the transformative Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra in January 2006 (with qualified successes in Louis Saha and Henrik Larsson joining in 2004 and 2007) has suffered from a sort of isolated recency bias.

Their fingers were scorched by Alexis Sanchez; the wounds are still raw. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer may smilingly predict a redemption arc so audacious and implausible it would make Noah scoff, but the Chilean will never be more than an unmitigated failure in Manchester; a signing so disastrous that the self-professed “biggest club in the world” were willing to tolerate numerous winters of fan discontent if it meant no similar gambles were made in the immediate future.

But circumstances change. Bruno Fernandes is available, United’s Premier League form necessitates an injection of inspiration, a spate of midfield injuries demands a response and the continued existence of Jesse Lingard as a first-team footballer can no longer be excused.

Liverpool, too, might have played their part.

“Is the January window maybe more difficult than the other window?” Jurgen Klopp pondered last month. “I don’t know. I think that the summer window is really difficult because of the different moments when it closes in Europe. That makes it really difficult. The summer window only hurts the English clubs; it doesn’t help them.”

January 2018 is the German’s case in point. Virgil van Dijk, unattainable a few months prior, was secured five days before the subsequent window opened. Manchester City waited a year and a half to bring in Aymeric Laporte after rejection in summer 2016. Arsenal had been linked with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but only in the winter did they act on that interest.

Each player is now indispensable, proof that if signings are suitable then they can be made at any time. The January window has the potential to be as rewarding as it is damaging if used properly.

But it does carry an inherent pressure and need for instant gratification. Summer signings are given time to adjust to a new team, new coaches, new players, new roles, new tactics and often a new lifestyle. Those who join in January are given no such time and patience, are expected to make an immediate impact and judged and questioned if they fail.

After a shanked clearance and poor header from the resulting corner led to defeat in his first Premier League game for Liverpool at Swansea, Jamie Carragher branded claims that Van Dijk would solve their defensive problems as “absolute nonsense”. Fernandes should anticipate being written off, dismissed, ridiculed on talkSPORT and compared to unflattering players by rival supporters on Twitter if he similarly struggles on his debut.

United have added to that burden, and not just by signing him so late. Their insistence on leaking examples of transfer due diligence and of lessons learned has led to the implication that an extra six months of football in Portugal has helped a 25-year-old club captain and seasoned international ‘become more mature’ and ‘tactically astute’.

It is folly, of course. Transparent and unchallenged PR. But every performance will now be viewed through that prism, every positional mistake and moment of indiscipline magnified. In reality, it will take little more than adhering to the basics to represent an improvement on United’s current options; that is a low bar to clear for more than £45m.

A necessary one, too. The basic concept of a transfer is that it is either a current or future upgrade on what you already have. Fernandes is precisely that. Ferguson would not be alone in questioning the timing – it should have been done in the summer or even at the start of this month – but United needed to exorcise their January demons.

Matt Stead

 

F365 Says Bruno Fernandes

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