Transfer few and far between on deadline day

DEADLINE DAY: Crystal Palace paid €26m to sign young midfielder Adam Wharton from Blackburn. 

Transfer Deadline Day, January 2024, will be remembered as the moment when financial fair play finally made its mark on Premier League football and left even the biggest and richest clubs too anxious to spend.

The day, so often filled with stories of huge sums being spent on last-minute panic buys, this time passed by in relative silence, leaving football reporters stood shivering outside stadiums and training grounds still waiting for a headline to pass their way.

There were deals done, of course. But Armando Broja going on loan to Fulham from Chelsea, Adam Wharton arriving at Crystal Palace from Blackburn and Morgan Rogers heading to Aston Villa from Middlesbrough are not the blockbuster moves we have been used to.

As the clock ticked towards 11pm, spending in the entire January window had not yet reached €100m – in stark contrast to the €915m spent last January, headed by Chelsea’s €125m capture of Argentina’s World Cup hero Enzo Fernandez.

When Sky Sports, who traditionally give Transfer Deadline Day more build-up than a World Cup Final, put Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One move from Mercedes to Ferrari at the top of the deadline day headlines, you got a sense that things had changed.

The reason is pretty clear: a growing fear that financial fair play rules (now renamed Profit & Sustainability Rules, PSR< by the Premier League) have finally grown teeth following the heavy sanctions handed out to Everton, with Nottingham Forest and Manchester City both in the firing line, too.

Everton’s sanction of a 10-point deduction puts their very Premier League survival in doubt, and Forest must be feeling nervous after last year’s transfer spending spree also saw them face a charge – with a sanction yet to be announced.

City’s charges, which they are vigorously defending, could see an even more devastating punishment handed out.

So, who would risk spending big in January 2024 with all that going on in the background?

Professor Rob Wilson, football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, told the BBC: "The charges hanging over Nottingham Forest and Everton for alleged breaches of the Premier League's PSR in their 2022-23 finances have put the wind up other clubs.

"Clubs probably thought they could stray from the guidelines a little bit and only get a small punishment. Now there is a real nervousness."

Newcastle, who spent so big under new Saudi owners last year, made it very clear that they were stepping out of the market; even unable to meet a loan payment to take Kalvin Philips from Manchester City (which allowed West Ham to swoop).

So, is the January window a sign that big signings are on their way out? Not necessarily. Under the Premier League's PSR rules, clubs can make maximum losses of €123m over a rolling three-year period, and the art in future will be to spread payments and buys across a longer period.

It makes signing players in summer – when clubs have moved into a new Premier League financial year – more attractive. So, we may well see big money moves in June as clubs like Arsenal, who opted to steer clear of the market this time despite their desire to compete for the title, come back to the table for high profile strikers such as Ivan Toney and Dominic Solanke, who both stayed put at Brentford and Bournemouth respectively, on deadline day.

Clubs such as Manchester United used the window to move players out on loan ready for a summer splurge, rather than spend now. As well as offloading Jadon Sancho to Dortmund they also sent Sergio Reguillon to Brentford, Donny van de Beek to Eintracht, Facundo Pellestri to Granada and Hannibal Mejbri to Sevilla.

All the big clubs were deathly quiet on deadline day, however, leaving smaller clubs to hog the limelight.

Rare highlights included Crystal Palace paying €26m to sign young midfielder Wharton from Blackburn, and Villa spending 10m on Rodgers from Boro (a transfer which sees his former club Manchester City take a slice of the fee, by the way).

The new era of frugality was not restricted to the Premier League. Across the whole of Europe, only Barcelona paid €30m or more for a player in the entire window, taking young striker Vitor Roque from Athletico Paranaense.

Many people uncomfortable with the eye-watering sums spent by football clubs in the past will no doubt be happy that common sense seems to be coming back to the table (even if it didn’t make exciting viewing for those glued to their phones all day).

But let’s not take that for granted until the summer arrives. With pent-up demand, unspent millions and a new financial year ahead, we may not have seen the end of the €100m transfer just yet.