Time to lose the January transfer window?

[Row D Seat 7 0]

In previous years the teams making the most moves in January have been the big spenders i.e. Man City, Chelsea & Liverpool.

This year the value in the market isn''t there which is proven with Man Utd resigning Paul Scholes and Arsenal bringing back Thierry Henry.

QPR are about to embark on a host of desperation signings to ensure they stay in the Premier League and Swansea have made three quite sensible and good signings.

It seems quite silly to me that the window only seems to be open to satisfy two or three teams. Half the Premier League are yet to sign anybody. Average players are overpriced in this window both in terms of transfer fee and wages. Especially players who who are currently playing for some of the Championships promotion chasing teams.

If it was up to me I would lose the January window and let clubs trade all season long or just from July 1st to August 31st. If it was the latter then clubs would just have to put up with long-term injuries etc and this might help bring youngsters through into teams where they wouldn''t have perhaps had the opportunity to play.

I cannot see us making any signings in this window after reading Paul Lambert''s comments. We are quite clearly being priced out of any signings we want to make because we are probably bidding for players who are a big part of the team they currently play for, so what''s the point?! Most teams are having this problem. There is just no value anywhere.

I like the look of Rhodes, Whittingham and Snodgross, but the rumoured fees make any potential bid absolutely pointless.

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,625]

I think the transfer window works well to be honest. The changes in the transfer rules were brought in for two main reasons, one; to unify all the European leagues (apart from those that run from a summer schedule like Russia, Sweden, Norway etc) and two; so the richest teams couldn''t poach players from lower teams in the run up to the end of season and make clubs think ahead for the entire season.

 

If there was no transfer window and clubs could buy all season long then teams like Huddersfield etc would have very little chance of holding onto their star players whereas now they know once they get to the end of August they are around until at least Jan, and from the beginning of Feburary they know the player is around until the end of the season. This allows teams on smaller budgets to have some security over their squad for the entire season. By allowing transfers all year round the richer clubs are the ones who really profit, any injuries can be covered by going out and buying another player. The one month window means that if clubs are in a situation where they really need additional players they can add to their squads (this is why prices can go a little mad), it also means that players in Scandinavia or Russia can also move into the other European leagues at a more suitable time for the exisiting clubs. If there was no January window prices in the summer would become much higher as clubs wouldn''t have the safey net of another chance to add additional players.

[Bill 1,788]

It doesn''t work and apart from the Premier League is by passed by the rest of the league - with scant regard to how the rules are ''stretched''There was adequate protection against bigger clubs buying success up to the end of the season with the previous transfer deadline which was the 3rd Thursday in March (I believe).Aside from the grotesque distorting of the market it can remove much of the ability of the club/manager to have control of their squad. There is too much power in the hands of the players and their agents without this nonsense giving them further powers. Without free movement, any player knows that from Sept 1st there is little a club can do to replace him.It is a charter for stagnation and a license for agents to stuff even more money into their pockets through a rigged market. Get rid of it as soon as possible and put a little bit of control back to the clubs and correspondingly an even smaller measure of influence back to the fans.