Football Spy's Secret Agent: Behind the scenes on transfer deadline day

By Mirror Football in Football Spy

Published 23:00 05/09/10

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Every Monday Football Spy's Secret Agent, MirrorFootball's very own football agent, will bring you the latest from behind the scenes in the world of transfers. This week: what transfer deadline day is like for players and agents.

Plenty of deals fall through at the last minute and some take some saving. One of my most uncomfortable experiences was taking a player to sign a deal. He met the chief executive, did the medical, and then went to a meeting to sort the financial details.

The chief exec then took a call from the chairman and we went and sat in the waiting room. Trouble was, it was a glass walled office and we could hear every word as the chairman was asking why on earth they were signing the player!

We could even see through the glass as the chief exec was Googling the player to look him up! Luckily, the very embarrassed manager put his foot down and we got the deal done.

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Harry Redknapp pulled off the summer's masterstroke move with 10 minutes to go of the transfer window, when he revealed he was bringing Rafael van der Vaart to White Hart Lane.

Not only that, but for roughly a third of what Manchester City paid for Milner. Bravo maestro, Bravo!

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy must have squeezed every last second out of that countdown flying through paperwork to get enough done in time

The key word there is 'enough'. With the usual backlog of faxes, Spurs just needed to show the deal was done through a few key forms and the rest could be ratified afterwards, which is what eventually happened.

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For me personally, my diary in the final two days of the window had been cleared just in case.

It was two long days of calls and emails where clients were on different lists at different clubs. All I could do was push them hard and wait.

The closest I came to drama was an offer going in at lunchtime for it only to be rejected out of hand. Very frustrating for all concerned but it is common on deadline day offers, for every one that goes through probably a dozen have failed, usually because the selling club cannot find a replacement, which was the case here.

For the first time this year we had the registration deadline day, best described as what Boxing Day is to Christmas Day. Yes squads were being announced but nothing very exciting at all.

No real shocks just yet more evidence the rules do little to achieve the aim of promoting youth development.

Stolen Spaniards are not the answer - we need there to be English players on the pitch at the highest level, simple as that.

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