As part of an espnfc.com feature on the January transfer window, I once called Damien Comolli to get some background on what buying and selling players is really like. Much of what the former Arsenal scout and Liverpool and Tottenham sporting director said is still relevant today.
As Comolli knows all too well – having played a big role in signing players like Dimitar Berbatov, Jordan Henderson, Hugo Lloris, Luka Modric, and Luis Suarez – the winter transfer window can be particularly difficult.
Looking back on when Fernando Torres was sold to Chelsea in January 2011, Comolli told me the signing of Andy Carroll was “quite straightforward” because it was close to the deadline and the player wanted to join Liverpool. As Comolli had previously said, he explained that the Reds were willing to meet a sizeable asking price because they had banked so much for Torres.
The Suarez deal, however, was more problematic. The clubs were “miles apart”, so the first meeting in Amsterdam lasted about 15 minutes. A follow-up took most of the day, and after two weeks or so the Uruguayan joined Carroll at Anfield. As Comolli admitted, he exceeded expectations.
Those three deals alone demonstrate the hit-and-miss nature of transfer dealings. Liverpool got a hefty fee of £50 million for Torres, but overpaid for Carroll whose move didn’t work out. Surarez, meanwhile, scored 82 goals in 133 games, took the Reds to the brink of the Permier League title in 2013/14, and was sold for a massive profit of around £50 million in the summer of 2014.
Now president of French side Toulouse, Comolli was quick to realise the importance of data in football. While some moves were more successful than others, two other transfers he was involved in have aged well.
Speaking in Dublin in 2014, he revealed that he and his team at Spurs reckoned that bringing in Hugo Lloris could earn the side an additional 18 points over the course of a season. Signed in 2012, the French goalkeeper is still in London, captain of both his club and his country and a World Cup winner.
Comolli said in 2014 he felt goalkeepers were undervalued in terms of transfer fees and wages, something that has been changing in recent years with the signing of players like Liverpool netminder Alisson.
Like with Lloris, the 2011 purchase of Jordan Henderson by Liverpool for a reported £20 million – which may have cost Comolli his job because the player wasn’t an instant hit – has certainly stood the test of time.
So what goes into signing a player? Here’s what Comolli told me…
1. The winter window: “Usually in January it goes quite quickly or it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“The biggest difficulty in January is that nobody wants to lose their best players,” Comolli said. “So if you are a decent-sized club or a big club and you actually want to strengthen your team in January, by definition you are going to go and buy the best player of another team in a lesser club.
“And that club absolutely doesn’t want to lose its best player because there is no time to find a new player, and the availability of players in January is very small, restricted and limited.
“A big club going to buy the best player of the lesser club in May or June or July gives a lot of time to that lesser club to find a replacement. In January, that’s not the case.
“That’s why it’s extremely difficult to do deals, and also that’s why prices are inflated. If a club is not a willing seller, if they end up selling the buying club will end up having to pay over the odds. So that’s why it’s such a difficult market.
“The only way to create value in the January window is if a selling club needs money. In terms of cash flow for clubs, December and January is never a good time. So having money at your disposal in January can be an asset because then if selling clubs have got money issues, then coming and buying a player can create value by taking advantage of the selling club’s financial trouble.
“The other way to create value is to get players who are not playing on a regular basis. So a smaller club buying players from a bigger club or buying a player from a club when the player is not playing, and he does well, then that’s a way to create value. But it’s very difficult.”
2. The scouting process: “Usually it’s a full season but sometimes it’s two or three.”
Comolli worked as a scout under Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, and he said the Gunners watched Robert Pires for about three years before recruiting him in 2000. Later at Spurs, it took a full season before they decided to part with the cash required to get Berbatov from Bayer Leverkusen.
Like with Pires, it proved a wise choice. After 46 goals and 24 assists in 102 games, the languid Bulgarian would later be sold to Manchester United in September 2008 – albeit with major reluctance on Spurs’ part on transfer deadline day – for over £30 million.
But why would a player need to be watched so often before a club decides to sign him?
“It’s about context really,” Comolli said. “Different contexts will sometimes bring out players’ different type of reaction or performance. What you’re looking for is continuity and consistency in the performance.
“When you look at a player like this throughout the season, it’s just to make sure there is no failure or no downside in his game. So you come to a point where you look more for negativity than positivity.
“For Berbatov, for instance, the rumour flying around was ‘he doesn’t perform away from home.’ So I was adamant that we had every away game watched. And then we realised that it was just a false rumour and false information – that he was as good away from home as he was at home.
“Then we were told he was selfish, and watching him play we realised he was creating an unbelievable number of chances and getting an assist. So we also realised that was wrong.
“So you just want to tick the boxes, even if sometimes you want to get rid of a negative box that you don’t want to tick. It’s almost reverse engineering that we do but we just want to get rid of rumours or perceptions by watching the player in different contexts.”
3. Background checks and confidentiality
It’s not just on-field issues that clubs are interested in. They seek out information on a player’s contract situation, whether they have any other suitors, whether they would be open to a move, and what league they would prefer to play in.
Local scouts, though, would also need to find out as much as possible about a player’s background: their family, habits, personality and partner. Will such a player fit in at your club?
Confidentiality helps when pursuing a target, of course, something that has become more challenging in the age of social media.
It was easier, no doubt, when Comolli and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy hatched a plot to sign Luka Modric, a future Ballon d’Or and Champions League winner, a Real Madrid star, and a World Cup runner-up.
“Modric was an interesting one because there was a lot of competition,” Comolli recalled. “We had to do it in April knowing that the window only opened at the end of May. To beat the competition, we had to do it very early.
“Daniel Levy flew to Croatia to get the deal done. It was very, very secret – I was the only one knowing he was there. And he did the deal and flew back with the player. The next day he was at White Hart Lane, right in the middle of April.
“That was a long process as well, because we made our first approach to Dinamo Zagreb in January of ’08 and then we ended up signing him in April of ’08. But there was a lot of secrecy involved… Daniel called me at 3 o’clock in the morning to say he’s agreed the deal and that he was flying back with the player and his agent the next day.
“So it was a long, long process – very difficult – and Daniel was very good at delivering the deal.”
With more and more data and footage available, competition for players is more intense than ever. What Comolli told me in late 2014, though, would still apply today.
“The higher you go and the higher profile the player is, the more competition there is,” he said. “And unless the club is Bayern Munich or Real Madrid or Barcelona, everybody can pay more. You’ll always have somebody that can pay more than you.
“So it’s about getting in early and trying to convince the player early that the club is the right one for him. Because most of the time the player will go with the club that shows the first interest, the club which is the most consistent in its interest and makes this player feel that he is really the number one target.”
4. The medical: “It’s almost like a special forces mission”
In Comolli’s experience, it was rare for transfers to break down once negotiations started. That usually happened beforehand – when it’s clear the wages are too expensive or the selling club are looking for too big a fee. At that stage, said Comolli, a player can move quickly from being a target to being an unrealistic one.
Although not many deals break down once negotiations get underway, then, one time they do is when a player’s fitness is being scrutinised.
“The medical can take a long time, and the big clubs make a thorough investigation,” Comolli said.
“That can last, sometimes, a full day. If the player has an issue somewhere – a soft tissue injury, joint injury or ligament injury, a previous or ongoing injury – then probably the club will call in some specialist or take him to see some specialist. A knee specialist or ankle specialist or hip specialist.
“So that obviously slows the process down. Whether you are chief exec or director of football doing deals, it’s something you absolutely don’t control.
“What does matter is that everybody knows what he’s got to do at a certain point of time in the day or during the signing medical. So it’s almost like a special forces mission where you’ve got the driver ready, you’ve got the helicopter ready – if you think there is one needed – or a private plane. You’ve got the specialist on call, you’ve got the hospital on call, you’ve got your doctor on call.”
If a doctor decides that he needs more time, then he’ll get it. If another specialist is required, he’ll be called upon. It’s not just the player who is anxiously awaiting their verdict.
By that stage, though, the deal is almost done. Then it’s over to the player to prove that all the fuss was worth it.
alwaysbeclosing 