One per club: Premier League players stuck after missing out on a move

Not everyone gets their move before the transfer window SLAMS SHUT. Here’s a list of one such player for each Premier League club.

Some were desperate to leave, some needed to leave for their own good and to play some football, some a bit of both. None got their wish. Unless they go to Turkey where the deadline isn’t for a couple of days and at least one of them probably will. Thanks, Turkey, you great feature-ruiner.

Arsenal – Reiss Nelson
The Arsenal staples for this kind of feature are all out of the picture now. Gone are the days we could just put Lucas Torreira down and not give it a second thought. Even Nicolas Pepe and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have gone out on loan now. And Nuno Tavares. And Pablo Mari. And with the Gunners now in full two-games-a-week mode until the World Cup there should be plenty of opportunities for most of what does seem to be a very happy squad. So Reiss Nelson, back at the club after a loan spell at Feyenoord and now injured at an inconvenient time, gets on this list pretty much by default.

Aston Villa – Douglas Luiz
Three bids from Arsenal arrived in the latter stages of the transfer window, three bids were knocked back. The last of them worth £25m plus extras at 10pm on deadline day according to transfer rumour wrangler-in-chief Fabrizio Romano. Whether Arsenal or anyone else comes knocking again in January when Douglas will have just six months left on his Villa contract we shall have to wait and see but it seems likely.

Bournemouth – Emiliano Marcondes
Linked repeatedly with a return to Danish football, the former Brentford man always seemed bafflingly keen to stay and fight for a place that shows no sign of coming his way. He was already a fringe player during the promotion campaign and there must be more to life than coming off the bench for the closing minutes of a 9-0 defeat to Liverpool, surely.

Brentford – Charlie Goode
Spent the second half of last season on loan at Sheffield United but returned to Brentford in the summer and has yet to make even the bench this season. Not getting on nine-man subs’ benches is a pretty clear sign you might be better off somewhere else.

Brighton – Tariq Lamptey
Spurs, Arsenal and Manchester United have all been linked with the former Chelsea right-back who has this year found himself used sparingly by high-flying Brighton, appearing only in substitute cameos. There’s no doubt Brighton is a decent place to be, but you’d want to be a bit move involved when at least half the Big Six have their eyes on you.

Chelsea – Hakim Ziyech
Strongly linked with a return to Ajax and, perhaps inevitably due to that particular connection, also to Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United, but finds himself still at Chelsea and having a miserable time of it. Given a rare chance off the substitutes’ bench in a dismal 1-0 Champions League defeat at Dinamo Zagreb, Ziyech managed to fluff a few crosses, make a bollocks of a free-kick and then get into an argument with Reece James about who should take a subsequent free-kick. Ziyech won the argument, and then made another bollocks of the free-kick. Mate.

Crystal Palace – James Tomkins
There’s a curious level of bloat in certain sections of the Palace squad, and you have to wonder whether the cause is players being reluctant to leave or Palace asking too much or some combination of the two. Hard to know whether any of these players – Tomkins is joined by Jairo Riedewald and James McArthur in not having played a minute of football this season – are stuck or happy with their lot but either way it’s not great. Take your pick here from Tomkins or McArthur; neither has so much as sat on a substitutes’ bench yet this season, which in a time of nine substitutes is almost impressive.

Everton – Allan
The Brazilian spent much of the summer being linked with a return to Italy, with Roma and his former club Napoli both said to be interested. Now doomed to a miserable existence where he is forced to watch Everton play football from the substitutes’ bench every week, which is a cruel fate nobody deserves.

Fulham – Josh Onomah
This year’s victim of the old classic late paperwork caper. A tale as old as deadline day itself. Now instead of being at West Brom where he is wanted, he remains stuck at Fulham where he is not. Hasn’t made it even as far as a substitutes’ bench yet this season. Not even in the Carabao, which has to hurt.

Leeds – Jack Harrison
Leeds scooped more transfer income than all bar Manchester City and Brighton this summer and were always clear that this summer would require sales. But one sale they were always dead set on resisting was that of Harrison, a target for the obscene wealth now bandied about by Newcastle. How successful clubs can continue to be in resisting Newcastle’s overtures, even when demanding “staggering” transfer fees, remains to be seen.

Leicester – Youri Tielemans
There’s an absolute mess of players left stranded by Leicester’s transfer stasis. Jannik Vestergaard, Boubakary Soumare, Nampalys Mendy, Ayoze Perez, Dennis Praet and Caglar Soyuncu are all to a greater or lesser extent unwanted by the current regime, a situation further complicated by the fragility of said regime. Youri Tielemans is very much wanted by Leicester but would very much like to have left in the summer please and thank you. And Leicester might actually have quite liked to have sold him to solve the transfer logjam that has gripped the club. It remains a bit weird that Arsenal and others didn’t make a more concerted effort to make it happen but there we are. To January we go.

Liverpool – Nat Phillips
Stated after his successful loan spell with Bournemouth that he wanted to “continue playing regularly, week in, week out” but has seen that admirable desire thwarted by Liverpool’s injury woes. There were plenty of possible destinations for Phillips right up until the deadline – most obviously a return to Bournemouth. Plenty of other top-flight clubs were interested, while there was also talk from Germany and a late push for a loan move by Benfica, which would surely have appealed. But Liverpool’s latest injury crisis left Jurgen Klopp with little choice but to keep Phillips as cover.

Manchester City – Bernardo Silva
Clearly ‘stuck’ is the wrong word and we’re not really sure he was ever really that close to joining Barcelona, but he was at least open to the idea and we like the way he very politely and diplomatically said his interest in the move was because Manchester is great but it can be a bit… much. “I’m from Portugal and my culture is a bit different from your culture off the pitch. I love Manchester and people are really nice here the way they have treated me in the streets, bars, restaurants — it is just a bit different from where I’m from and sometimes you want different things in your life.”

Manchester United – Cristiano Ronaldo
Apparently the little-known Portuguese wanted to leave Old Trafford this summer, but you won’t have read about that in the MSM. Anyway, that’s all in the past because he’s even celebrating Manchester United goals now so all is well and a title tilt is back on the cards.

Newcastle – Javier Manquillo
Hasn’t made a competitive appearance for the Magpies since a 5-1 defeat at Spurs back in March, but the potentially season-ending ACL injury suffered by Emil Krafth on Carabao duty last month put a firm end to any thought of a move away from St James’ Park for Manquillo, who will now serve as Kieran Trippier’s understudy until January at least.

Nottingham Forest – N/A
One benefit of buying a whole new squad is that nobody can reasonably be described as stuck. And the small handful of players who were there before this summer all seem happy enough about it and remain very much involved.

Southampton – Nathan Redmond
As long as your definition of ‘stuck’ allows for ‘about to join up with Dele Alli and the rest of his merry band of Premier League outcasts at Besiktas because Turkey’s transfer deadline isn’t until Thursday’ that is. We can’t be bothered going through Southampton’s squad again to find an answer that still actually applies, frankly.

Tottenham – Japhet Tanganga
The Antonio Conte Bomb Squad were all duly bombed out as the window wound down, albeit mostly on loan leaving Japhet Tanganga as perhaps the only member of the squad with specific grievance about still being around. Until quite late in the window it appeared a reasonable chance that Spurs would sign another centre-back and that Tanganga would then be allowed to leave. He had some enticing suitors as well, with both Roma and AC Milan said to be keen. In keeping with their policy of trying to sign all of the footballers, Forest were also linked. Barring incident, a loan move surely awaits in January.

West Ham – Said Benrahma
It’s a weird one, but even when things have been going splendidly well at West Ham there’s been a strangely strained relationship between David Moyes and Benrahma. Moyes often seems to be reluctant to praise and quick to criticise the Algerian. There does seem to have been a détente in recent weeks but still for much of the summer a departure appeared on the cards. Until it wasn’t.

Wolves – Adama Traore
Yet to play more than 19 minutes of any Premier League match this season. Remember when he was at Barcelona? Mad that.