Try before you buy

After successfully telling you that Harry wouldn't have an immediate impact at QPR I hope to back that up by assessing the likely impact of buying and loaning players in the transfer window.
 
As January approaches fans start to get excited about the prospect of the transfer window opening and their club spending millions to save their season by bring a new hero.
They are fed up with the current strikers drought in front of goal, the midfielders lack of creativity and the leaky defence. The only option is to pressure the board and manager to throw money at the situation in a desperate attempt to make everything better.
 
The 2011 January transfer window have saw some big money signings who have failed to make the desired impact in their first 5 months. Examples include:
 
Fernando Torres £ 50 million yet took him 903 minutes to score his first goal
Andy Carroll £ 35 million two goals in his first half a season at Liverpool
David Luiz £ 18 million and struggled to come to terms with defending the premiership
Steven Pienaar £ 3 million move to spurs didn’t work and he found himself out of the team for the most part of his time there.
Edin Dzeko £ 27 million which led to 2 goals in his first 15 premiership games and made his new fans wait until the 25th of April to score his first premier league goal
Stephane Sessegnon £ 6 million and another who made the fans wait until the 23rd of April before scoring a goal for his new team.
 
This this is not to say these players haven't gone on to be successful for their club but simply they didn't make the impact in the season they were brought, other big money signing included Luis Suarez £23 million who managed 4 goals in 13 games and some great performances and Darren Bent £ 18 million to Villa which yielded 9 goals in 16 games. You could argue they did make decent impacts but in the main it seems clubs have learnt from this and used the January window far more wisely. The following season saw a big change in the type of deals that were done with the emphasis being on loan deals and even free transfers.

Arsenal brought in Thierry Hendry (loan)

Aston Villa brought in Robbie Keane (loan)

Everton recalled Landon Donavan for a second loan spell and brought back Steven Pienaar for six months.

Swansea managed to loan Gylfi Sigurdsson

Man United resigned Paul Scholes

Spurs captured Louis Saha on a free transfer

The 2012 signings had a more desired impact and perhaps a psychological view that is more familiar to us will help us to relate to what the transfer window must be like.

Scenario 1-Big money transfer

You arrive back to work in January still slightly hungover when your boss informs you that he has employed someone to do your job with you. He maintains your job is not at risk and both of you could work well together. You find out that the boss has paid a lot of money to get this new worker to the company, you don't know how much he is getting paid but you suspect it’s more than you. The new worker is treated like royalty in his first few days and there is an important meeting coming up, your boss explains that you can't both go to the meeting and as he is new it's vital that he goes to get used to the company. Regardless of how the meeting goes your boss knows he has shed out lots of money for this guy so they give him another go. The new worker is struggling to make impact at this company as it runs differently to his old company and he is feeling the pressure, you are de-motivated as you seem to be playing second fiddle to a worker who isn’t producing the goods. Not exactly the ideal situation for workers to be performing at their best .....

Scenario 2- Loan player

You arrive back in at work and your manager tells you that because you have been finding things hard going he has employed a temp to help you out for 3-4 months. The boss has explained that the temp is here to ease the work load and allow you a couple of half days on a Wednesday so you can go home and see the family. The temp is unlikely to stay here full time and will go back to the agency when his time is up hopefully with a good reference and some useful experience under their belt. You don't know what the temp is getting paid but you’re not too bothered as he doesn't even have a full time contract. There is an important meeting and your boss explains he would like both of you to go into the meeting and if (Tommy the temp) can help out in anyway then so be it. Tommy has been making some useful suggestions in the meetings and seems to think he is adding to the company if by the off chance he talks rubbish it doesn't matter as he will be gone soon. You find that you are managing the work load better since Tommy's arrival and your morale has improved the company seems to be back on track and Tommy knows he is only here for a short time so feels no pressure on him to perform and is making crazy suggestions that are going down well.

This is potentially why loan signings have been more successful in the recent years as players are far more welcoming to a loan player than a big signing. Combined with the pressure of being a big signing it is hardly surprising that many big signings succeed in their second season/first full season. With this in mind I have come up with the top 10 loan signings for this transfer window.

Kaka- barely get's a game at Real madrid

David Beckham- No club

Landon Donavon- LA Galaxy 

Didier Drogba- Shanghai Shenhua

Brad Freidel - Tottenham no point being a reserve keeper when you 40

Darren Bent- Aston Villa 

Royston Drenthe- Alania Vladikavkas

Fernado Llorente - Athletic Bilboa 

Tim Cahill - New York Red Bull  

Joe Cole - Liverpool

Let's see if over the coming month any of these players are snapped up, please feel free to add to my top 10 list.

Vote of confidence

In a week where Premier League chairmen have been extremely busy hiring and firing it has led me to think what is the optimum amount of success a manager should have in their first season?

Let's take the two managers who have lost their jobs this week as examples; firstly Mark Hughes after coming in and doing a good job to keep QPR in the Premier League. Mark then went and embarked on a spending spree to strengthen his team with the aim to be an established Premier League squad in a comfortable mid table position. His wild policy of buying any decent players that would come to the club regardless of what position they play in reminded me of my early days playing championship manager 01/02 where I would often have 12 attacking central midfield players but no left back. His decision to bring in so many players appeared to have an effect on team cohesion and morale, the results and performances that followed really were poor. Home games against the 3 promoted teams and one of the perceived weakest teams in the division in Swansea yielded only 1 point, combined with the inability to pick up points on the road something which they struggled to do last season as well meant the board had no choice but to replace Mark Hughes. He had ran out of excuses in the end no longer could he blame last year’s squad, inheriting a losing team, tough early fixtures, or my favourite " we need time to gel" the only surprise was that the board gave him so many games.

Roberto di Matteo however seems somewhat unfortunate to lose his job, yes Chelsea were going through a sticky patch but they were hardly a team in decline, or a team where you simply couldn't see where the next win was going to come from. When RDM took over they were 5th in the Premier League, 5 points away from 4th place and virtually out of the of the champions league trailing Napoli 3-1. If you pretend he never won the FA cup and Champions League RDM has left Chelsea 3rd in the table 4 points off the top of the table. Admittedly their position in the Champions League is in the balance but progression is not impossible if Shakhtar can win their game. From a progress point of view you would say in the six months he has been in charge Chelsea's league position has improved and the squad has a younger fresher look to it with the introduction of some fantastic young players who will only get better. He has had to cope with the departure of the clubs best ever player and goal scorer depriving him of playing a direct style of football that can grind out results. Now if we stop pretending for a second and remind ourselves that he did win the FA Cup and Champions League it simply beggar’s belief that he could be sacked. Winning those trophies created a fault position where Chelsea’s fans and chairman now expect this success every season, which simply won't happen. If the Barcelona team of the last 4 years hasn’t managed to retain the Champions League then no one will.

My question to everyone then is if RDM hadn't won any trophies last season would he still have a job now? He isn't the first and won't be the last manager that has achieved plenty in their first season only to be judged on that success and then sacked. Living in Hampshire I have had the dis-pleasure of Southampton fans telling me how they want Nigel Atkins sacked and that he doesn't have a clue?? You suspect if they had finished just outside the play-offs last season and were currently 9th in the Championship his job would be completely safe?

I have had the great pleasure of managing a school U15 team in my job and in my first season won both the league and county cup which for a decent yet unspectacular team that hadn't won ever won anything was a great achievement. My second season resulted in us finishing third in the league and getting knocked out of the cup we won in the first round. In the football world I simply would be collecting my P45 and sending out my CV in the hope of a new job. Luckily I am not a judge on the success of the school football team.

So this brings me to my next question do the top managers try to get gradual success?

If we take Harry Redknapp for instance, he is always viewed as a manager that has an 'instant impact' but a closer look at Harry's first six games in charge of his last four jobs would suggest differently.

When taking over at Portsmouth in 2002 he managed no wins from his first five games, but subsequently won them the league the following season, he then joined Southampton in November 2004 and took eight games before he got his first win and narrowly missed out on saving them from relegation. His second spell in charge of Portsmouth started terribly with only two wins from his first thirteen games before going on to take the club into Europe and win the FA cup and although making a better impact when arriving at Spurs in October 2008 he still only managed five wins from the first fourteen games before taking them to the quarter finals of the Champions League.

Despite history showing us that Harry Redknapp doesn't have an instant impact, I wonder how many of you reading this will still be putting £5 on a QPR away win to Sunderland on Tuesday night? 

Sir Alex Ferguson was famously one game from the sack before guiding Manchester United to the FA Cup and subsequently multiple trophies but it would be unthinkable to suggest both Sir Alex and Harry believed a slow start may be better for them in the long run but it does beg the question in your first year of management how much success should you achieve?

Over the next few months I am going to watch very closely the changing attitude of the media and fans towards Brendan Rodgers, Steve Clarke and Paul Lambert. Predictions as to their success or lack of it are very welcome.

Michael