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THE AWAY END - A TRANSFER WINDOW SPECIAL - 1-2-08
John Powls
Well, it's all over 'til May. So what happened with the moves and what does it mean for the rest of the season?
Out of the window.
The parmo, pretzel, stottie or "mystery food" saga over Woody's future was finally resolved in favour of the pretzels at Spurs. Overall, I don't think this was a bad piece of business but the misgivings I have are less about Woody going than why.
Amongst their other reasons for leaving, Woody joined Veruka and The Yak in not buying into Gate's vision for Boro. Disillusion with the relegation struggle and the lack of apparent progress have already been mentioned. I think there's some of that we'd all agree with.
Andrew Davies made his move to The Saints permanent. A mate who is a big Saints fan says they are most impressed with him at centre back and he is fast becoming a fans' favourite there.
Meanwhile, Celtic nipped in under our noses and nicked Hutchinson, first of all for next season, then late in the day on an immediate transfer. Like we've got so many good young striking prospects we'll never notice one missing! Yeah, right.
...cooling on the window sill...
With Downing, it was parmo, pretzel or scouse for most of the month. So no change from the Summer or the last January window then. Part of the rub this time would have been the constant evidence of the wage structure at the club. Whereas Stewie and his agent believed that he should be at or near the top of that, Gate, Gibbo and The Count clearly didn't.
There have been several "clear the air meetings". I am grateful to my mate Ian's fertile imagination for "transcripts" of the latest episode of StewieGate, although there are no Hurworth tapes, unless you know different and favour meets in underground car parks!
It could have been like one of those chats with the wife:
"Stewie, you alright?"
"Fine."
"What's bothering you?"
"Nothing."
It was probably more like a Newsnight interview with a cabinet minister though:
"Why aren't I on as much as some of the other players?"
"It is important to reflect on how far we have come as a club."
"Why did you let Woody go?"
"We are working for the benefit of the whole club and want to take those with us who want to go forward."
"If you want me to stay and you put a £12m price tag on me, why don't you pay me a commensurate salary?"
"Stewie, you are like the police. We can't do without you but you can't take action either. Do we know where we are on this?"
"Absolutely clear."
"Great, glad we have sorted that one out."
Then, Gibbo waded into the debate. His views on most agents were well known but he was particularly vitriolic about Stewie's.
"Unfortunately, we have to deal with Ian Elliott, a man who, in any other walk of life, you couldn't imagine giving ten minutes of your time to."
Why didn't you just say what you meant, Gibbo? Mr. Elliot's lawyers are studying what was said.
The important outcome was that Stewie was still a Boro player.
Josh Walker went off to Aberdeen on loan for the rest of the season to get the experience that will help his career for us. Matt Bates has been loaned to Norwich to get some football and continue his rehabilitation from injury. Good luck to Josh and Matt.
With Dava and Woody gone, and Matt Bates loaned, it was a good job we had a centre back factory at the Academy!
What was wrong with them all? Did nobody want Simba? I guess that was a "no", then.
It was alleged that Gremio had been trying to sort out a deal for Rocky but nothing came of it.
Another player who was seriously in the frame for some time was Motherwell's young striker, Ross McCormack. He is out of contract at the end of the season and so open to talk to other clubs. It appears that we have been talking but that's all it amounted to.
Then in flew Inter Milan starlet Goran Slavkovski, an eighteen year old, "Balkan-Swedish" striker a la Zlatan Ibrahimovic who had been training with us. He was supposed to join on loan until the end of the season. I wondered if he would slip into the same anonymity as Herold Goulon?
But we were destined never to find out. An ankle injury and overall lack of impression made saw him trip off to Bramall Lane. Maybe we'll see what we missed in the Cup game later in February.
None of the possibilities in other positions which could have improved us - goalkeepers and right sided midfielders like Darren Fletcher or Gera - were pursued.
And, where is Mendi in all of this? Presumably, he just lingers now until his contract is up at the end of the season.
...and in through the door on deadline day!
The rollercoaster that is January 31st shuddered away from the ticket booth with me clinging on with my eyes closed, knowing I had to stay with it until after midnight.
It came out from the club that if the Alves deal failed we had no plan B. Brilliant, just brilliant. Only at Boro. What a wind up. I could see tomorrow's headline quote, "The return of Mido is like a new signing (or two). I'm happy with the squad we have."
Despite what was said, I noticed that Michael Ricketts hadn't signed his QPR contract, making me feel immediately queasy. There aren't enough pies or outsize shorts to suit him and Mido, let alone Rocky!
There were some other "thud and blunder" options - like Rob Hulse - touted that had me nervous too.
But, despite all the rumours that ground through the mill - and Gibbo confirmed that Fred had been a real possibility - the only story with legs right through to deadline day was Alves. I say legs but the pace was more gastropod, doubtless complete with its own form of slime trail!
On deadline day we were still waiting for an answer from the Employment Appeals Tribunal in the afternoon and hadn't finalised the deal with Heerenveen. We weren't even close yet. Then the news came through that Roma were trying a hijack. This was funny. I had thought it would be Citeh who would take advantage of the delay.
My natural Boro fan cynical fatalism made me think that Roma wouldn't take long over a deal and, despite EU harmonisation, they wouldn't have work permit difficulties either.
My humour didn't improve with the stories from Gate that Alves was "totally committed to joining Boro rather than Roma". The man with at least four contracts is a man of his word. I'm sure he meant all of them when he signed them! Yeah, tell me the old, old story.
But The Count and Gate secured the permit and the negotiations began as the clock ticked down to midnight. I suffered several hours of Sky getting texts saying "the deal's done" but then no-one official could confirm it.
We had explanations of all the payments that had to be sorted, almost down to various relatives of Alves back in Belo Horizonte who needed 0.0010355% from when he first signed as a pro!
But then it was done. Oh, the relief as the roller-coaster stopped - and at the right place to be able to get off! Officially it was timed at 23.10 - quite early for Boro on these occasions - but Sky didn't break the news until 23.30 after reading the Heerenveen website. They confirmed it at 23.45 from Boro sources.
I was only kept from my bed and happy dreams of Alves belting goals in by the joy of seeing 'Arry, Storrie and Sven as they messed up the Defoe and Benjani deal and just being absolutely sure that Stewie was staying put.
So, what does it mean for the rest of the season.
Well, first of all, it may not be over yet. Alves has got his International clearance and is sorting a visa that should make him available for Sunday's game against The Barcodes. Our depleted resources make that a necessity.
But then AZ - despite having lost the ruling from their own FA - said they were going to try to get FIFA to ban Alves from playing for us for the rest of the season. Talk about sour grapes. I hoped that wouldn't start with some sort of injunction to stop him making his debut on Sunday. Maybe I got off that rollercoaster too soon!
In my view, and leaving the legal challenges side, we've done good business this time round. We won't be diminished too much by Woody's departure, it was important not to lose Stewie and we have signed someone who could put the finishing touch, literally, to what Gate and the rest of the team have been creating.
I can't wait to see him play but we need Alves to succeed quickly. The key to our survival is in the next run of games when we play other sides in the Bottom Half League. This starts on Sunday.
By the end of February we could either be heading for relative comfort in the Premiership at the top of the BHL and be in the FA Cup quarter finals, or we could be languishing in the relegation zone again.
It can't just be down to Alves either. We need Mido, Aliadiere and Tuncay fit again and playing their part.
And above all, we can't just let the situation with Stewie fester. It won't help his game and we, Alves included, need him to make the bullets for our top gun strike force.
MFC should be big enough to draw a line under the row and sort the new contract out long before May. That way, the whole sorry mess won't start again.
If I thought transfer deadline day was a roller-coaster then we're probably in for one for the rest of the season!
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John Powls is a published poet with five books of his work in print. He is a regular performer of his work at major literary festivals and exhibitions in the UK and America, often working with musicians, painters with photographer Carol Ballenger.
Check out Red Shoes 250 for more of John Powls, right here.
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