As MP seemed determined that we would do early business, herein lies the question.... How many players do people think we have signed and sealed by his target date of 1st July?
Last season we signed a total of 8 players in the summer window, 1 between the windows, and 1 in the winter window. Of the 8 in the summer we got..... Before July 1 - Jay Rodriguez During July - S. Davis, Clyne, Gazzaniga Early August - No-one. Last Week of August - Mayuka, Yoshida, Ramirez, Cropper.
Well we're a relatively low-profile club in terms of the players we hope to sign, so if we don't get our business done early they will go elsewhere. I don't think we have the budget or the reputation to get the calibre of players we want at the end of the window when demand is highest. They say they want all business concluded by July, well that would surprise me, but if we haven't done the vast majority of it by then I'd be worried.
Mauricio wants all the deals done early, but then so did Nigel. Doesn't seem to happen. We may have more chance being in our second season, so not such an unknown quantity. The problem is that we want top players and they can be hard to get...it would be easier if we just wanted decent players.
Negotiation just doesn't work in that way. In every walk of life, deals get done at or near the deadline. That's the point when you know that the deal being offered by the other side is genuine. Up until a negotiation deadline, there is an incentive to try to get more (or pay less) for a player than he's worth because you know you'll get another chance. When the clock's ticking, the truth comes out, all the potential buyers and sellers are known and deals are done. I used to work for a company that sold software (amongst other things). In one (pretty typical) quarter when I was involved, we booked 98% of our quarter's business on the final day of the quarter. It's the way of the world. Football's no different. We might get a deal or two done by July 1st but there'll still be some done on the deadline day. Or I'm the "boots" in a Hungarian health hydro. Vin
I suspect you did so much business at the end of a quarter because so many organisations use quarterly budgeting. They had some money left and had to either spend it or lose it. If we have identified targets it's very much in our interest to complete the transactions as soon as possible to prevent other clubs perhaps missing out on theirs and entering competition for ours.
