Top 10 Tips to Signing Your Transfer Window Targets

Jul 9th, 2012 - Posted by R_O_Donovan in Football

Blogger who likes to take a light-hearted approach to football. Writes about Brentford and all things football on my blog: lifeonthebeeroads.blogspot.com, as well as contributing t...

With the football transfer season well and truly upon us, today on the blog Ryan O'Donovan gives us his top 10 tips to signing your transfer window targets.

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Everyone knows that the most important time of pre-season is the transfer season. Every manager up and down the country (with the exception of Chelsea, who’s owner: Roman Abramovic does the transfer deals) is frantically looking for those targets that they think will make their club just that little bit better for the coming season.

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? But you and I both know that it just isn’t that simple. You get clubs holding other clubs to ransom for their players, you most often get it the other way round too with players holding their clubs for ransom and then to top it all off you get the player’s agents holding the clubs and players for ransom. It really is a tough old time for the managers and Abramovic.

But what can they do about it? Well, that’s where this handy old guide comes into play. If Alex Ferguson, Brendan Rogers and most certainly Arsene Wenger need any help, then they will need this guide. If you need any help in securing your summer target, then read on.

10. Buy Their Friends

Where would we be without our friends? You would never have gone out to that bar where you met that very nice lady, you would never go to football matches because you’d have no one to go with and you most definitely wouldn’t be in your lucrative job that you have now. So obviously this seems a good place to start if you want to get your top target this season. If you buy their best two mates who are handy at football then it will make it a whole lot easier when it comes to the main man.

Now, some managers may have moral and ethical concerns over this, as your target’s best friends may not be the best footballers in the world. But not to worry, when there’s a will there’s a way and in this instance you play the friends in the Capital One cup and against some lowly teams that they can handle. At the end of the day, they’re still getting paid a handy sum of money and may or may not be at a big club, so it all works out. Just make sure that the friends don’t have an appalling attitude, like Mario Balotelli, otherwise it might not work out for the best. You would want van Persie playing for your club, but if his best friend was Joey Barton you wouldn’t exactly want that escaped, deranged prisoner rampaging through your team, would you?

9. Meet Them and Buy Them a Romantic Dinner

This particular point has worked well in the past. Remember that Tony Blair bloke that was Prime Minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007? Well he was only leader of the Labour party because he took Gordon Brown out for a nice little dinner and persuaded him to not stand against him. It also works in the sense that you take a woman out that tickles your fancy in the vain hope that she’ll agree to see you again, or possibly in a desperate attempt to lead her into your room. Either way, it sometimes works.

So history shows us that this approach works, but there are always some key pointers to bear in mind when using this tip. Firstly, do not bring them to KFC or McDonalds. This may work well for your hopeless love life but it wont work well for a multi-millionaire footballer that eats out at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant to celebrate being on the field. Instead, bring them out to a restaurant that suits the occasion, a fancy restaurant in Central London may fit the bill here. Oh, talking about bills, make sure you have enough money for the meal and drinks and don’t ask them to pay! This may well be the first time you have ever met the player face to face, so make an impression on them: dress up in a suit and tie if need be. Don’t wear your training tracksuit with your club badge everywhere, it may seem a bit over the top. That would be a bit like turning up to test-drive a new car with your Ferrari race suit and helmet on. It really isn’t necessary.

8. Alert the Press About How Much You Admire Them

Regular players of Football Manager may already be well aware of this tip, but I do think it needs explaining to the real football managers amongst us. Alerting the press to how much you admire your target could be a great way of him finding out what you think of him. When players see themselves in the press they seem to get all starry-eyed over it, so a few good comments could send him into total meltdown and he would be like putty in your hands.

On the other hand, it could work in the exact opposite way. How could this happen? Well, he may see his name in the paper with your good comments next to it and immediately believe he is the best player in the world. Soon afterwards, he will go into complete meltdown for the wrong reasons and reject you because he is holding out for Real Madrid or some other extremely large team to come in for him. He will then waste the next 3 years of his career waiting for this offer to come in, which never arrives meaning that he is therefore now useless and not worth 5p. So be extremely careful when you go to press with your comments, it may not always work out as well as you would hope.

7. Attempt to Buy Them Every Single Season Until You Are Successful

This is a well-known transfer tip that has been used very successfully in the past, unfortunately for Arsene Wenger. You may remember when Barcelona had that unhealthy obsession with Cesc Fabregas and they attempted to buy him every season until eventually Wenger and Arsenal could not defend him any longer and he eventually shipped off last summer? Well, if you really are that interested in your target then this could be the way forward for you.

Sure it may seem like stalking and you may be arrested if you keep sending him e-mails and texts telling him how much you love him and that it would make your life if he was one of your players, but it has been proven to work if you don’t turn into a teenage girl with a crush. Rather than going too overboard on the personal side of things, keep putting in good bids for the player until his club has no choice to accept. It may annoy them quite a bit and you probably wont be friends with the opposing manager afterwards, but at the end of the day you want that player for your own selfish means, so stop at no costs until he is yours. Even if it takes 285 years to get him.

6. Have Some History

The key word in this tip is “some”. A club’s history is always important to players, but they have a different idea of history to the fans. To the club’s supporters, history is having 100 years of the club fighting title battles in 1932 and winning FA cups in 1948. To the players it’s a tiny bit different. Instead of 100 years of history, they are content if there are five. If your club won the league 4 years ago for their only time then that’s good enough for the player.

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Even so, any type of history is an important aspect of signing a player, for instance if you are manager of Liverpool then their illustrious history will always sway a player, whereas if you are manager of Chelsea then their solid history from the past 10 years will serve them well. At the end of the day, it always depends on the type of player you are after.

5.Tell Them You Will Win Countless Trophies

We all know that players say they go to clubs to win trophies. If that was strictly true then every top player would be going to Celtic, because lets face it you have the best chance of winning a trophy there. But then again, using this as a selling point to your target can always go a long way in trying to secure them.

Now, a few pointers for you on this subject. Firstly, don’t tell them your aim this season is to win the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. This is definitely a weak selling point in your global conquest for trophies. Players want big trophies, like the league title or the Champion’s League. If you can manage to persuade your target that your club, even if it’s a League Two club, are in a good position to win the Champion’s League then do it. Footballers aren’t the most intelligent bunch of people in the world, so it may just do the trick.

4. Befriend Their Agent

Agents are normally seen as the devil’s advisory by football managers. Their only job is to make as much money off their players as possible and off the clubs for that matter. In order to make your job of securing your target that little bit easier for you then becoming friends with the agent really helps. Think of it this way, it would be a lot easier to get with Megan Fox if you knew her brother; it’s a way to get talking. If you get friendly with their agent its also an easier way of signing them, as their agent will be persuading them to join your club.

A few warnings however. Agents are the backbenchers of football. Their only job is to make as much money off their players as possible, much like a parasite lives off a living organism. They can be two-faced most of the time, so be careful when dealing with them. Much like nuclear waste, agents’ suits should come with tons of warning stickers on them. There is an easier way to sort out an agent though. Bribe them.

3. Promise Them a Large Welcoming Ceremony

Everyone loves a ceremony. Children love birthday parties. Teenagers love parties and adults love any excuse to just get out of the house, so it seems like a good idea to promise your target a large and over-the-top celebration in their honour if they join your club. Cast your mind back to a few summers ago when Real Madrid went on that huge spending frenzy and they threw massive celebrations in the Bernabeu in front of 80,000 people. That sort of stuff would make a player happier than Simon Cowell if he got free spray tan for the rest of his life.

What better way is there to make a player known he is welcome than to parade him around like a zoo animal in front of your entire stadium? Ever since Ronaldo got one of these celebrations he has become the second best player in the world, so I don’t see why your transfer target can’t be the same. A top tip here: don’t tell your chairman how much this celebration is going to cost; or it may just cost you your job!

2. Win the Champions League

This is a no-brainer really. Winning Europe and the world’s biggest club competition will attract the world’s biggest players. Let's take the example of that Eden Hazard bloke, the one with short-term memory problems. All season long he was playing clubs around like he was that girl in high school that had a boyfriend every other week and then once Chelsea win the Champion’s League he signs for them on the spot. Without a doubt it works, who wouldn’t want to play for the European champions?

However, there is one problem with this. When you are European champions you tend to have a bit more money to splash about and footballers know this. They will know a club’s finances better than the accountant that keeps them in check. As a result of this they will bleed the money out of your club in order for them to be on as higher wages as possible. But, at the end of the day, you’ve just won the Champion’s League and if your target is holding you for ransom then ditch him and go for another one. There will be plenty of players wanting you to buy them.

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1. Be Manchester City

We have finally reached our number one tip and what else could it have been? If you want to be able to sign your transfer target then the easiest way possible is to be Manchester City.

Why? It is very simple really; they have endless amounts of money. I’m pretty sure that they have more money than Ireland, Italy and Greece combined. No matter how much the player wants, City will be able to afford 1,000,000 times that. If the player wants a massive celebration in his honour, then the club would more likely buy him his own island to celebrate. If he wanted a romanctic dinner then City would be able to buy him his very own Gino D’acampo. City are the rich men of the world, offering sports cars and women as part of their transfer deals, so being Manchester City really is the best way to get your transfer target.

Final Remarks

Managers of the world, I give you your top ten tips to securing your summer signings. A word of warning, use the guide with caution, don’t let the players or agents get hold of it and most importantly, do not do a Rangers and get the club into some deep financial trouble because of it. Other than that, good luck with your transfer season and when you are being interviewed by Sky Sports about your big summer coup, leave some credit to this guide.

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @R_O_Donovan

Read more of Ryan's work on his blog LifeOnTheBeeRoads Blogspot