FOLLOWING the signing of Matthew Hoppe earlier this month, Middlesbrough manager Chris Wilder revealed that the American ambitiously asked for the number nine shirt at the club.
Wilder’s response was emphatic. He had earmarked that squad number for a target he wanted to bring to the club before the end of the window. The same thought process was being executed for the numbers 5, 10 and 11 as Boro raced to beat the deadline with a couple of weeks left.
Rodrigo Muniz would take the number 9 shirt after completing a season long loan move from Fulham while Matt Clarke became Boro’s number 5 after a permanent switch from Brighton and Hove Albion.
Unfortunately though, those two would transpire to be their last acquisitions of the summer transfer window. Their intentions on deadline day were fully committed to enhancing squad depth and covering all positions across the pitch with holding midfield and forwards being the primary focus.
But after 11pm last night, they had been left without a number 10 or 11 until January at the earliest. That in itself is a telling sign.
It’s a telling sign for two reasons. The first reason, Chris Wilder has not got all of the signings he would have wanted before the end of the window. The manager has publicly vented his frustrations at working in the most difficult transfer market he has ever had to work in during his time in the dugout. Throughout the summer, they were being dictated to by clubs higher up in the football pyramid and were waiting for the potential domino effect to take place. Unfortunately, some dominoes have not toppled much to Boro’s frustration. While some gaps were plugged, the manager has not got his 10 and 11.
For the second reason, it highlights an age old problems with managers gone by that the disconnect between the manager and the recruitment team could still exist. The likes of Hoppe and Marcus Forss are signings for the future but are they what the club requires right now to achieve success? That doesn’t appear to be what Wilder thinks at this moment in time.
However, this has come as an extremely tough market to operate in for many reasons.
Boro also received a cash injection from sales in the summer. Marcus Tavernier headed to Bournemouth in a deal worth around £12 million while Djed Spence completed a long awaited move to Tottenham for a financial package totalling around £20 million. A huge sum of money to play with for any side at Championship level.
However, even with those huge sums of money coming into the club, their financial firepower paled in comparison to the heavy hitters of recently relegated Premier League teams from the last few years. Parachute payments provide the platform for the likes of Burnley, Norwich City and others to flash the chequebook at the expense of others below them in the table. A hard hitting reality of the capitalist economy of the league.
Meanwhile, given their recent years spent locked in a legal battle with Derby County over their frivolous spending a number of years ago, Boro are being very mindful of breaking Financial Fair Play rules.
Splashing the cash has never really been a part of Boro’s remit but the repercussions of breaking the rules are at the forefront of the club’s mind as well as the manager’s who only knows first hand the experience of managing a club through financial strife.
Fans seem to expect that if they receive money from a sale, the sum is in a pot to take it out and spend on someone else. That is true to an extent but it’s not quite the carbon copy of a game of Football Manager.
Wilder was quick to remind the media a number of weeks ago that Chairman Steve Gibson is an investor in the football club as a whole. He’s backing is not just restricted to the transfer market. Perhaps a subtle message of where the money generated from Tavernier and Spence has gone.
There was a strong message from the last game of last season at Preston that there would be a sweeping overhaul of the club over the summer. Ten new signings would suggest that is the case but is it the complete picture that the club were hoping for? Chris Wilder said after the defeat to Watford on Tuesday ‘stuff has got to happen’. It hasn’t and that tells it’s own story.
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