Pages

▼

Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Michael Frey...a very modern transfer saga

Following Forest's hokey cokey transfer sagas is a near full time job at the minute (Hamer, Lansbury, Antonio, Barton et al) and not recommended from the odd glance in a hotel room on holiday.

Returning from Munich - where the football side seems in decent order - it dawned on me that the pursuit of Lille striker Michael Frey will go down in folklore - largely thanks to the bizarre way it played out on Twitter.

First came the whiff of a mystery striker. Who could this be? A rabbit from Dougie's magic hat? 

Next it emerged it would be a foreign rabbit and - largely by pestering tabloid journalist Alan Nixon on Twitter - fans attempted to piece together the puzzle. We learned that the mystery man was a foreign striker playing abroad. Someone who had changed hands for decent money last year and who would be considered something of a coup.

That certainly set the hares running. Suddenly the hashtag was awash with people brandishing random Wikipedia pages of an array of unknowns from the depths of Ligue 1, the Eredivisie and La Liga. 

Then news came that HE was coming to this country. He was on a plane and about to be shown around the club. We held our breath and hoped for no riots - which may or may not have caused the demise of the Wesley Verhoek non-transfer under McClaren.

It now emerged that the mystery man was Michael Frey. Half the Twitter timeline rushed to glean what they could from the bowels of Wikipedia and the ropey realms of Google Translate. The other half let out a collective 'who?'.

Then came the usual rush to judgments: 'look at his goal record last season', 'this article says Liverpool were interested so he must be half decent' etc.

Then suddenly - and I include myself in all this - fans became transfixed with the progress of a deal for a man we'd not heard of. The cries of 'who?' were replaced with 'when?'.

We were told that he was impressed with the set up, lack of riots and Dougie's vision for the club and, as a result, was keen to join. We then spent a lot of time making sure the deal would work within the constraints of the FFP embargo. Too long for the timeline-refreshing Twitter crew. After all the loan deal of keeper Ben Hamer had gone up in smoke after falling foul of the dreaded regulations.

After that work was seemingly done it appeared we were not just keen to go ahead but also to try to get permission to set a fee down the line. Dougie, at this point, seemed concerned that the player would come and be so good that someone else would snap him up on a permanent deal and cash in on our hard work. That at least sounded promising - as though the debate was more about what came next than whether he came at all.

We even saw off competition, apparently, from Blackburn Rovers who had now been alerted to the Swiss prodigy's availability after our interest. He'd chosen us, we wanted him and all seemed lined up to push the deal through.

But then, at the last minute, the plug was pulled. Cue another #meltdown. If some are to be believed the player was even said to be on his way to the airport when he heard of the u-turn. That may be an embellishment but in this tale you wouldn't rule it out.

The mystery, the excitement, the drawn out chase, the successful drawing up of a financial package and the challenge of a rival bidder all overcome but, then, after all that, we just didn't fancy it any more. All, for added farce value, played out on Twitter since the beginning. 


You probably could make it up...but if you did you ought to bung a CV to a soap script editor. 

Dougie, speaking after the 0-0 against Charlton, said he'd pulled the plug because he wanted someone who could 'hit the ground running' and there were concerns that Frey hadn't played since January and was recovering from injury.

That does, on face value, sound sensible. That, coupled with the need to adapt to English football, would make it tough for Frey to adjust to the Championship. 

However, for me, it sounds fishy. We knew the fitness/rusty concerns before flying him over, wooing him and working up the terms of the deal. Maybe Dougie thought - wrongly it seems - that Lukas Jutkiewicz would arrive as part of the now-cancelled Henri Lansbury deal? Maybe it wasn't really Dougie's decision? Perhaps these eleventh hour transfer u-turns have always gone one but only now do we hear more about them?

Who knows. The serious point amid this whole saga - and that of Hamer and, further back, George Boyd - is that such instances do serve to undermine our reputation in the game. Does that matter? I think it does. If players, agents and clubs fear we'll pull out of deals or be unable to complete transfers that we've committed to it could be even harder for Dougie - or whoever comes next - to do his business. 

Perhaps oddest of all is that, by some bizarre method, I'm happy with the business we've done so far. I didn't really want Lukas Jutkiewicz or a foreign striker who may take months to settle and hold back Tyler Walker's progress (albeit Frey might have been good enough to prove me wrong). I also want us to hold on to Henri Lansbury and Michail Antonio which, as things stand, is still the case (although less certain with Michail). I'm also happy to let Dorus de Vries have the gloves and let the Ben Hamer money be spent on positions we need to fill more urgently (with a view to getting an emergency loan in if DDV gets injured).

Who knows what tomorrow holds. Joey Barton? Kyle Ebecillo? While ever the window is open you cannot be certain what the next twist will be. Sometimes cringeworthy, often surprising and always, oddly, compelling. I'll see you on the hashtag...







at

No comments:

Post a Comment