What Happens When A Player Doesn’t Get His Move?

Three top Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United — have players that have been agitating for (or as they say these days: trying to engineer) a move to another club. With Arsenal it’s Adebayor, with Chelsea it’s Drogba (and Lampard) and with us it’s you know who.

In the cases of Adebayor and Drogba they’ve been whining in public for a move away whilst, in the case of Ronaldo he has done a lot with his silence.

The funny part of all this is that it’s gone all quiet on the Adebayor and Drogba front. Milan, after having signed Ronaldinho (haha! take that, City!) seem to have cooled their interest in the Togo man, whilst no one really seems to be interested in Drogba. In the case of Ronaldo, however, Madrid are interested. But, lately, two Madrid players have voiced reservations of varying degrees regarding the signing of Ronaldo. [As an aside, I am not really sure if it was appropriate for them to be making those statements as contracted players of their club but, then, as they say: like club, like players.]

Cannavaro said that Blatter’s comments were daft and that Ronaldo must honour his contract. Wesley Sneijder, who not so long ago said that he’d love to play alongside Ronaldo, said that if Ronaldo is given a bumper contract it would cause tensions in the Real dressing room — confirming that he’s a two-faced twat. But two-faced twattiness aside, what Sneijder said was true. In a dressing room containing living Real Madrid legends like Raul and Casillas, it would cause friction if Cristiano were to walk in with a cool 150k pounder plus image rights. It’s not wrong that he gets that considering his current status in the footballing world as the ‘best player’. But squad tensions will definitely surface — although, it must be said, it’s not new in the Castillian club.

But what happens when Real somehow cool their interest due to fears of squad upheaval? Or what happens when it becomes clear that no one’s interested in the services of Adebayor or Drogba? Because then, the dynamics change. It won’t be the club’s fault — it’s only lack of interest in the player from other clubs. Egg on his face, how would a player react? How would he face his club mates?

He could release statements re-affirming his commitment to the club with an ‘I was always looking to stay on and it was just media speculation’, but it’s not quite easy to face up to the lads in training with a straight face and get on with football.

But certainly it leaves the club in a stronger position with regard to the player. It would be harder for the player to attempt another move to a club the next summer unless a club comes in for him. We are talking about big players here, so basically, it has to be a couple of the big clubs really that the player would want to move into. So when that move does not materialize due to previously interested club’s loss in interest, it’s the ego of the player that will get a battering. And in the current climate of inflated player egos, I think it wouldn’t be all that unfair for a player to get a reality check on his sense of self worth.