Windows sound like a simple concept. They’re open, or closed. Anyone with experience of the Microsoft operating system will know it isn’t always that simple, however. There’s still a month left of the season left to play, but the statements, intentions, reassurances, come-and-get-me pleas, come-and-get-him pleas, etc. have started already. It’s like the sash window that rattles interminably even though you’ve wedged a folded-up pizza leaflet into the frame.
Lots of the talk now relates to players who can leave on a free at the end of the season, and Marseille are maybe more affected than most. L’Equipe say that Andre Ayew has chosen Roma, but he has also been linked with (deep breath) Wolfsburg, Dortmund, Schalke, Swansea, Inter Milan, Spurs, Newcastle (surprisingly) and various others. As Quentin Guéguen observed, “if your club doesn’t have an agreement with Andre Ayew…”.
Obviously, there is still space for renegotiation, which for some players may or may not hinge on the continuing presence of Marcelo Bielsa on the sideline icebox, but things are looking set for a difficult window for OM. Per Transfermarkt, as well as Ayew, Rod Fanni, Jeremy Morel, and Andre-Pierre Gignac all have contracts expiring on 30 June. Some OM fans might not be traumatised to see them go individually, but it should be noted that all four are in the ‘First XI’ for minutes played this season. If all of them leave, that’s looking like a significant rebuild, even before you get to reported interest in Giannelli Imbula and Florian Thauvin, and the complication that Lucas Ocampos’ option apparently isn’t automatic if OM don’t make the Champions League.
There are several other players able to leave on a free from the current top five. For Lyon, Yoann Gourcuff and Mouhamadou Dabo are available; the focus will no doubt be on trying to keep hold of Alexandre Lacazette, although Jean-Michel Aulas hasn’t traditionally been one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and their other smorgasbord* of young talent who have done such a good job this year.
At Monaco, things are customarily complicated. Elder statesmen Dimitar Berbatov and Ricardo Carvalho have contracts that expire in the summer. It looks certain that Berbarotica will be leaving Stade Louis II, but it will be interesting to see if Carvalho – who arrived on a free – will be retained. He’s played 30 games and only been sent off once, but he is 36, and has missed 15 games through injury (as well as two suspended). Meanwhile there are buying options on Fabinho, Alain Traore and Matheus Carvalho but also other loan deals coming to an end – Wallace probably the key one to look at keeping, now Bernardo Silva has extended to 2019, but also cup keeper Stekelenburg.
Saint-Etienne could also have quite a lot of renegotiation meetings coming up. There is a buying option on Ricky van Wolfswinkel (on loan from Norwich), and Kevin Theophile-Catherine’s loan from Cardiff is due to expire. This could mean issues at right-back as Francois Clerc’s contract is also up, as are Ismael Diomande’s, and Landry N’Guemo’s (although there’s an option for a further year for him). However it looks like ASSE are already working on this, as Fabien Lemoine recently signed an extension to 2018.
At Paris Saint-Germain, meanwhile, Zoumana Camara is available on a free; he presumably doesn’t cost much but PSG have to consider freeing up seats as well as space in the wage-bill, so this might be it for the 36-year-old. The option to buy on Serge Aurier (whose loan deal from Toulouse also expired this summer) has been exercised. Amongst the customary links-with-everyone, Nasser Al-Khelaifi is gamely saying that Laurent Blanc will be manager next year and that they won’t be selling Cavani. He also says:
“It’s not yet the end of a cycle. But we do have to pause and reflect how to regenerate the team. We already have five or six players for the future. We aren’t going to change all 11 players. We also want players with experience.”
As mentioned above, one problem that PSG have, alongside the FFP restrictions on spending, is a squad size limitation. This perhaps shouldn’t be a problem, but has had rather an impact. Several times this season Blanc has been forced into substitutions, such as against Caen when they were left with nine men after Cabaye, Marquinhos, Aurier and Lucas Moura all went off injured and Matuidi had been withdrawn as a precaution, and (although with a happier outcome score-wise) against Lille, when they lost Sirigu and Aurier before half-time, and then riskily took off Motta for Rabiot when David Luiz looked like he was limping. If those limitations persist, any recruitment that PSG do try will presumably exclude anyone with a significant injury history.
In further admin news, you may have seen FIFA’s recent edict on “Third Party Ownership of Players’ Economic Rights” (the follow-up to their successful debut, “Gone with the Wind”). TPO (not the stuff that gets cyclists into trouble, not the song by Le Tigre) is already banned in France, but that doesn’t stop some slightly strange arrangements from continuing, and there don’t seem to have been any moves in that direction; the opening of FIFA’s FAQ document demonstrates what this tax-trained member of Team FFW used to refer to as ‘wiggle-room':
“What is third-party ownership? – Third-party ownership, or TPO, refers to the circumstances in which a physical or legal person who is not a football club invests in the economic rights of a professional player, potentially in order to receive a share of the value of any future transfer of that player.”
Emphasis added – because maybe there’s a reason why Matheus is listed as having been loaned to Monaco from ‘Atletico Barra de Tijuca’ according to the LFP, and Fluminense according to pretty much everyone else. So, no change there then – although strangely hedge fund Doyen Sports chose France to lodge a court complaint against the restrictions last month.
Anyway, the rattling will continue for another month until the window actually opens (at least in France), at which point with the absence of any senior men’s tournament to distract from the main business at hand, there’ll be prominent new tabs on every football website, and Twitter will be awash with accounts run by schoolboys who don’t get out much being quoted as ‘sources’ right left and centre. Can’t wait.
Being ‘ITK’ may be helpful for developing a follower count and then selling the account on, but let’s all bear in mind that not too long ago, even the benchmark ‘I’ll wait until he’s pictured holding the club shirt’ approach took a bit of a knock.
We’re just going to sit here and wait for all the admin to go through…
*not an implication that any of them have been linked with a move to the Allsvenskan, just a metaphor.
