WELCOME to transfer deadline day. Or as I like to call it, the last day of dry January.
Down south, groups of lads are already no doubt preparing banners and blow-up dolls to lark around behind beleaguered Sky Sports News reporters with. Peter Odemwingie in the car park, Harry Redknapp’s car window, it is all part of the Premier League circus.
Yet while England whips itself into a frenzy – an estimated £124m has already been lavished on players down there and you will maybe be able double that by close of play today – in Scotland, January deadline day largely means an array of players being loaned in, loaned out, returning to their parent clubs, plus the occasional free transfer. If we are really lucky, someone might arrive for an undisclosed fee.
A quick recap of starting line-ups last weekend shows how the Scottish top-flight has become increasingly addicted to the loan signing. While Rangers relied on four loanees to beat Livingston 3-0 – Joe Worrall and Ryan Kent started while big money duo of Jermain Defoe and Steven Davis arrived from the bench – Celtic utilised three in the 3-0 win against Hamilton.
Then there was the battle of their erstwhile title challengers at Pittodrie. Kilmarnock used two, but have spent the last few days completing a couple more temporary transfers from the English game in the form of Conor McEleny and Alex Bruce. Aberdeen used four, including their big January signing Greg Stewart. He arrived on-loan from Birmingham City, having previously been on-loan at Kilmarnock. They missed out on Lewis Morgan. On-loan from Celtic.
But it isn’t just the top of the table we are talking about here. St Mirren manager Oran Kearney used four loan signings as they went down against Hibs, who used two.
Hearts and Motherwell both fielded a couple, with St Johnstone and Livingston – two teams, perhaps coincidentally, who could be said to be over-performing this season – bucking the trend by not fielding any.
The imperative for these quick hits is obvious enough. For Scottish clubs, the loan route offers clubs a relatively risk free way to recruit what on the face of it is a higher quality of player. Whether it is Defoe or Davis at Rangers, Ross McCormack at Motherwell or Steven Naismith at Hearts, Scottish clubs can access seasoned talent with their parent clubs picking up the rest of the bill.
On the other side of the coin, for the big clubs, loaning players out provides a risk-free finishing school were rough diamonds with promise can be schooled in the senior game.
It isn’t just Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United who do that now, David Weir for instance has a dedicated role at Brighton and Hove Albion where he keeps tabs on their loan guys.
In the Scottish context, there are a few obvious success stories in this regard. Callum McGregor excelled sufficiently in a season at Notts County to persuade his Parkhead paymasters to persevere while Ryan Christie did himself no harm at Aberdeen. Over at Rangers, the likes of Ross McCrorie got a taste at Ayr United and Dumbarton.
Pretty much every club does it, only at different economies of scale. But the real question is whether all this loaning in and loaning out is actually healthy. Does it have a knock-on effect for the sense of attachment supporters have for their teams? Does it encourage bigger clubs to stockpile too many players? And encourage smaller clubs not to bother developing their own?
Forget McGregor or Christie for a moment and consider the case of Scott Allan. Allan’s move to Celtic from Hibs in the summer of 2015 certainly took him on to a higher wage scale. But time for a football player is precious and unless something changes quickly when all is said and done it is hard to imagine the 27-year-old being able to feel that he maxed out his potential. Circa January 2019, Allan has had four permanent clubs and seven loans.
A player like Lewis Morgan must look at that and fear the worst. Especially when he sees the Parkhead side recruiting Maryan Shved from Karpaty Lviv, and immediately preparing to loan him out again, even though Brendan Rodgers already has “about a million wingers”. The loan system in world football is a leviathan, but Scotland is allowed to set its own rules.
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