The image of David De Gea, the finest goalkeeper in the Barclays Premier League, sitting in a suit and tie and dreaming of Spain while his Manchester United team-mates scurry about on the pitch will define this long summer transfer window. It also prompts the question, what on earth does all the speculation, bidding and bartering do to the psychology of teams, players and managers who have been meticulously planning for the new campaign.
The answer is that it drives coaches to be spiteful, players to mistrust team-mates and chief executives to panic. The transfer window is a wrecking ball that destroys morale and makes a mockery of the marginal gains that clubs seek for success.
“De Gea is a professional athlete and if I was working with him I would be preparing him to perform,” David Fletcher, director of sports psychology at Loughborough University, says. “He has to be a professional. My message would be for him to focus appropriately. Part of the mental preparation for a game is to block out distractions.”
Rachel Anderson, a football agent, says that she would never advise a player to sit out the start to a season because of transfer concerns. “They would be in breach of their contract and they would be fined,” she says. “It’s not good for the player. He has to be able to do his best on the pitch regardless of whether the fans or the manager or his wife is on his back. They have to be focused and it’s a good learning curve; they can’t always have what they want when they want it.”
Even for those players who are not dreaming of pastures new, the transfer window can still be a nightmare. “If a player has no real interest in moving, then becoming a target unsettles them,” Anderson says. “What also unsettles them is when another player comes in and they think they are no longer top dog and then they start looking around. These public affairs that go on for months are no fun for anybody.”
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The most public affair of this window was that of Raheem Sterling’s leaving of Liverpool. “One of the messiest transfers has been Sterling to Manchester City and you got the impression it unsettled the Liverpool team a bit and caused quite a bit of tension,” Fletcher says.
“It is critical that athletes in a team believe they are pulling in the same direction. You might question a player’s commitment if he is linked to a move. Strategy and training will serve up mixed messages.
“We as psychologists talk about emotional contagion. Nerves before a game will spread just as confidence will spread. Players not committed to the team will spread that emotion so that others doubt their commitment to the club.”
The window, then, brings out the worst in the protagonists. “Some managers hate not being 100 per cent in control and they can become quite spiteful,” Anderson says. “They might drop the player or play him out of position. If a lower-league player has the chance of a big-money move, the chairman will be furious that his asset is not being shown off properly, but many managers don’t care or don’t even realise how cruel they are being. They just hate not being in control.
“I know of players who want to extend and improve their contract but the club wants to delay a deal, so in effect punish the player by putting him in the reserves or making them train with the kids or, as a final punishment, making them train on their own.”
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Anderson, who has been an agent for 20 years, finds that once the window is closed, the bullying managers suddenly become friendly as they need agents to help them to entice players on loan deals if they failed in their transfer dealings.
How a club handle the window, ironically, can give them a marginal gain over their rivals, argues Dr Robert Morris, lecturer in Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University.
“It’s about understanding as a club what you want to get from the transfer window,” he says. “The best players might leave but they can still develop into a good team. It’s about the club being in control — as well as having the money — of as many aspects as possible.”