A penny for the thoughts of Hakim Ziyech.
Let us take you back to January. Fresh from a wonderful World Cup with Morocco but struggling to establish his presence at Chelsea, the forward was handed a football lifeline: a winter window deadline-day loan move to Paris Saint-Germain.
Four months playing alongside Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar for a side through to the last-16 of the Champions League and on course for a ninth Ligue 1 title in 11 years, as well as sharing a club with his close friend and countryman, right-back Achraf Hakimi.
He had made the short journey from London to the French capital by lunchtime to complete the deal, only for farce to ensue.
Despite Ziyech’s direct messages to Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly pleading to get the move completed, the distraction of securing Enzo Fernandez from Benfica on the same night meant the necessary paperwork for Ziyech was filed a few minutes after the deadline passed.
Even an appeal supported by both clubs to the Ligue de Football Professionnel, which runs the pro game in France, failed to get the transfer approved. With that, a unique opportunity was gone forever and a livid Ziyech was left feeling down in Paris and out of love with west London.
There is no hiding place after that, even with the inevitable ‘few days away’ to get your head around what has just happened. At some point, you are going to have to return to your club, speak to your team-mates and train and play alongside them.
You may also hope that a change of circumstances — or the arrival of the summer window — will bring a happy conclusion and reassure you that everything happens for a reason.
Ziyech, and Chelsea, tried. He started their first game following the winter window’s closure, a goalless home draw with Fulham. That was followed by just two more starts for the remainder of the season: the Champions League last-16 first leg defeat at Borussia Dortmund and a Premier League loss away to Tottenham Hotspur, also both in February. After that Spurs game, he played for just 84 minutes over five appearances in their final 17 matches.
The summer window has been officially open for more than a month now and all eyes are on next season. Yet despite not figuring in Chelsea’s plans, Ziyech is no nearer realising the full ramifications of those events at the start of the year.
The closest he has come to leaving is interest from Al Nassr, the Saudi Arabian club Cristiano Ronaldo plays for. There has been some confusion over the apparent collapse of that move, with suggestions the results of his medical scuppered the move seemingly questioned by the player on Instagram.
This is just one case of that sinking feeling from a collapsed January transfer.
Ziyech is not the only one. He won’t be the last, nor is he the first.
Josh King had already been a Manchester United player through their academy system and then spent two years with their reserves. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was his manager at that level. Yet this was different.
A January 2020 loan move to Old Trafford was on the table for then-Bournemouth striker King. Marcus Rashford was going to be out for months with a back injury and Solskjaer — now back at United as first-team manager — needed a quick fix.
King, then 28 years old, viewed it as a once-in-a-career opportunity. The chance to fulfil the dreams he’d had as a youngster at United. The only issue? Bournemouth were not prepared to lose a player who was a key figure in their hopes for Premier League survival in the middle of a season.
The gap could not be bridged. United moved on to other targets and eventually signed former Watford striker Odion Ighalo from Shanghai Shenhua in China. King stayed at Bournemouth, who went on to be relegated anyway. The 62-cap Norway international left the club in the following January window and has since played for Everton and Watford in the Premier League and Turkish side Fenerbahce.
King missed out on a January 2020 move from Bournemouth to Manchester United (Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
“I’m not so bitter now, but when it happened I was quite disappointed it did not go through. I really wanted to go there,” King told Norwegian television outlet TV2 18 months later. “‘What if United are still interested? That would be amazing’.”
Timing is so often everything. For all the chaotic, reactionary qualities of the mid-season transfer window, it can still represent a unique shot at something special.
Seeing that offered to you and missing out makes for a tougher landing back down to earth than the opportunity never being there in the first place. It can be the worst-case scenario and a real test of character.
“He had his heart set on it and you could tell he wanted to go,” King’s former Bournemouth team-mate Charlie Daniels tells The Athletic. “It took him a little bit of time to get over it, like it would do for anything. But once he did, he was back to his normal self.
“Mentally, it would have been tough. I know he told the club what his intentions were, that he wanted to go back to United — especially under (then manager) Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was a fellow Norwegian. It took its toll on him for a week or so. After that, he was fine.”
Nine starts, three goals and two assists rounded off the rest of his 2019-20 season — one with the sizeable distraction of a three-month pause in the season because of the Covid-19 pandemic that helped put a lot of things into perspective.
“He didn’t down tools or anything,” Daniels says. “As fellow professionals, you know everyone has their own club they adore. We just wanted to wish him the best and hoped it went through. It would’ve been a big step for Josh and we’d have been disappointed he left us. But we also understood that to go to Man United would have been really good for his personal development.
“When there’s a few of you sitting over a coffee or something is when these things get brought up, but nothing really happened. We just saw how disappointed he was that it didn’t come, so we were really respectful of him and moved on.
“We knew if we just kept pushing it, it might have had a negative effect on him. We needed him. So we were all behind him, welcomed him back and just tried to get him back going.”
How you carry yourself in those moments of pursuit during the January window is important. It can make life much easier should things fall through and you find yourself back where you started the month.
Take Peter Odemwingie’s infamous deadline day in January 2013.
The West Bromwich Albion striker had handed in a transfer request, which was rejected. He had said goodbye to club staff and his team-mates, who he promised to take out for a meal the following week to say thank you for the memories. He even left some autographs, before driving 125 miles from the Midlands down to London.
He arrived at Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road stadium in the dark. Sitting outside in his Range Rover because he was denied permission to enter the ground, Odemwingie signed autographs for QPR supporters and even gave a short interview to Sky Sports. He admitted the move was not completed but said he expected it to be, hoping West Brom would be “happy with what they will get” as a fee.
(Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
After four hours in that west London car park, Odemwingie was told the deal was off and he drove home to his partner and their newborn baby.
The following morning, Odemwingie met West Brom club officials and was given several days off. He later apologised to his team-mates and the club, but was still fined two weeks’ wages for his “wholly unprofessional” behaviour.
Odemwingie failed to work his way back into manager Steve Clarke’s starting XI over the rest of the season, which brought intermittent Twitter outbursts from the Nigeria international. By March he had accused the club of trying to ruin his career, claiming that keeping him on the bench was worse treatment than failing to agree to his QPR move, and that it was his advisers who told him to take the blame for what had happened in January.
The episode was finally resolved in the summer when Odemwingie made a permanent move to Cardiff City.
Since then, it’s been more about the funny side of the incident.
A year later, Odemwingie joined Stoke City and, to poke fun at him, if there were any players there wanting to move away or asking for a transfer, the team would attach the surname Odemwingie to their first name in mockery.
Come December 2015, West Brom were also mocking the incident as part of their Twitter advent calendar.
#AlbionAdvent: DEC 10 – @OdemwingieP is interviewed by @SkySportsNewsHQ at @QPRFC It’s Christmas after all… #WBA pic.twitter.com/BruC4NI0Ao
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) December 10, 2015
The tweet was shared widely and received a laugh when it inevitably reached Odemwingie, who now admits the primary lesson from the incident was to not do any more interviews through an open car window — an amusing conclusion given Harry Redknapp, the master of that particular field, was the QPR manager who had tried to sign him.
“I’ve had a few team-mates over the seasons who, come deadline day, leave with their bags then come back in the next day,” Daniels says. “That’s the funny part, when they pack up all their boots and belongings. The locker gets emptied, they’re like, ‘Right. See you later, lads. I’m off to such-and-such club…’ and then the next day they come back in with the same bags. That’s the best bit.
“In the end, you just laugh it off. It might be a player who hasn’t been around the first team and wants to play first-team football somewhere. We know they don’t mean it.”
For many, the collapse of that big January move remains an unscratched itch.
Out-of-favour Manchester United forward Jesse Lingard was in the final months of his contract and desperate to join a post-takeover Newcastle in January 2022. However, the fees were not enough to convince the Old Trafford club to sell him to a team they, correctly as it’s turned out, saw as potential direct Premier League rivals.
So he stayed put, interim manager Ralf Rangnick continued to have little interest in using him and the end of that season brought an end to more than a decade with Lingard’s boyhood club; all of it concluding with a public whimper and a pointed statement on Instagram from his brother.
Lingard spent last season with newly-promoted Nottingham Forest, making 17 appearances. He is currently without a club for 2023-24.
In January 2002, it was then-West Ham forward Paolo Di Canio who turned down an approach from Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson — although he also hoped there would be another attempt come the summer.
There wasn’t.
Di Canio turned down a mid-season transfer to Old Trafford (Photo: Craig Prentis/Getty Images)
“We haven’t made any approach for Di Canio, not since last January,” Ferguson told The Times later that year. “If we had done it last January, it would have been justified and we would have got the benefit of it this season, but not now. It’s a pity because I think he’s a marvellous player.”
Not only did Di Canio’s career in England see him miss out on ever appearing for one of its biggest clubs. He was released by West Ham after their relegation from the Premier League at the end of the following season, and joined fellow Londoners Charlton Athletic.
However, there are players who can reflect on a difficult January and can raise a smile at what transpired.
Charlie Adam, for instance.
After catching the eye in the Premier League with promoted Blackpool, January 2011 saw Liverpool bid for the Scotland midfielder.
Initial bids were described as disgraceful by Blackpool manager Ian Holloway but had risen to £10million by deadline day. That was still short of Blackpool’s valuation, which was written as £14m but in reality was as much about the benefits of Premier League survival for another highly lucrative season come May.
Adam submitted a transfer request to try to push through the move and talked to his chairman Karl Oyston, but the club did not budge and he assumed his shot at becoming a Liverpool player was gone.
“It was a really difficult time,” said Adam in a recent interview. “I totally understand why Blackpool held firm for the right fee but it’s difficult when you’re in the middle of it.
“There’s an opportunity to go and play for one of the biggest clubs in the world. I had the chance to play under (countryman and Scottish football icon) Kenny Dalglish. The players I was going to be working with… To have that carrot dangled in front of me was amazing, and then to see it not quite materialise in that January… It was very, very difficult to accept.
“The lads in the (Blackpool) dressing room were great when all of those Liverpool rumours were doing the rounds. They knew it was a life-changing move. There was no animosity at all. It never felt like it was me versus them. They were just buzzing for me.”
Blackpool got relegated that summer, and Dalglish returned with an offer. Adam completed a £6.75million switch to Anfield in the July, arriving alongside, among others, Jordan Henderson from Sunderland.
Adam eventually did get his dream move (Photo: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Few have experienced the feeling of having a transfer collapse while sitting at their prospective new club. Dan James has.
The then 21-year-old Swansea City forward had completed everything. Signed it all. Said his goodbyes. A £1.5million loan move to then 2018-19 Championship leaders Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa and a £10m permanent switch if they went on to win promotion to the Premier League was simply awaiting the green light.
Then, on the brink of the deadline at 11pm that night, Swansea demanded a bigger upfront payment and their chairman Huw Jenkins sought to ensure James would not be leaving.
Through no fault of his own, James was left to head back to west Wales. A young man with his head spinning. No apology needed, yet an awkwardness that would prescribe it.
His Swansea team-mates understood. The manager Graham Potter knew James had the character to respond in the right way. If anything, the proposed move inspired James to greater heights over the rest of the season.
Come the summer, James made a £15million move to Manchester United. Two years later, they sold him to a now-Premier League Leeds for £25m.
Leeds target James moved to a different United first (Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Chelsea’s new signing Nicolas Jackson may also find himself smiling at what transpired back in January. Indeed, the collapse of a proposed £21.6million move to relegation candidates Bournemouth at the start of the year may well have been what made his £32m summer switch to Stamford Bridge possible.
The then 21-year-old’s initial opportunity to leave Villarreal was as much of a surprise as his immediate return to Spain. Jackson had made little impact in La Liga since his summer promotion from their B team and was carrying a hamstring injury.
“We will try to cheer him up, to encourage him because it was a great opportunity,” Villarreal coach Quique Setien told UK newspaper The Guardian. “We’ll support him, help him overcome this disappointment and strengthen him so that when the summer comes, he is worth twice as much.”
Jackson’s focus at Villarreal was renewed. He returned to fitness and scored on his first start, beginning a run of nine goals in eight league games with performances that caught the eyes of those watching — Chelsea included. Now he will take on the Premier League under Mauricio Pochettino.
And then there was Riyad Mahrez.
It was January 2018 when Leicester City rejected a deadline-day bid of about £50million from Manchester City for their Algeria winger. Mahrez had handed in a transfer request the day before and wanted to play to go to the Etihad to play under Pep Guardiola. Leicester, however, were not prepared to lose one of their primary playing assets.
Mahrez spent 10 days away from the club, in which he missed training and two games, then blew hot and cold for the rest of the season. But he got his move to Manchester City come that July.
“It was handled quite sensibly,” Michael Appleton, Leicester’s assistant manager at the time, tells The Athletic. “Ultimately the club has got to look after their position as well, because he was a big asset — one of the best players. So there has to be some sort of common ground.
“He was given a few days (off) to clear his head. From a coaching point of view, it’s not particularly helpful but the reality is you’ve got a lot of other players you have to deal with and unless it’s brought to your attention by the other players that they’re not happy about it or something is going on, you just got to deal with the now and then.
“All it takes is a few days of training and integrating back into the group and very quickly it’s forgotten about.”
Mahrez got to work with Guardiola in the end (Photo: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images)
Things move on but the repercussions last.
Losing your better players in January can be harder and they are more expensive to replace in that winter market, and their exit may be particularly disruptive to a club’s prospects for the rest of that season. In a bid to convince a wanted player to stay, managers will often ask for a few more months of loyalty in exchange for help making an equivalent move happen come the summer.
Although, as we already know, there is no guarantee the same opportunity will present itself when the window reopens.
“I’ve had a couple of instances as a manager where my key players have wanted to move in January,” says Appleton, who has been in charge at Portsmouth, Blackpool (twice), Blackburn Rovers, Oxford United and Lincoln City. “You’re pretty much saying, ‘You’ve done great to put yourself in this position. Give me another three or four months and then we’ll sit down and give you an opportunity to go better yourself, shake hands and part ways’. That’s happened a couple of times and has been quite successful.
“Once I had that conversation, you know the conversation is going to come again in the summer. So it heightens the situation in terms of what you needed to do. Between January and the summer, we would then try to make sure we got the best possible replacement we could.
“In the back of my mind I’m thinking, ‘I need to try to find his replacement and I will sign his replacement’. But if the player wants to stay as well, we’ve got the best of both worlds.”
It was this past January when Moises Caicedo missed out on a move to a title-chasing Arsenal.
The Brighton and Ecuador midfielder continued to be impeccable in his behaviour and performances for the rest of the season. His popularity with team-mates and staff remained.
Head coach Roberto De Zerbi spent the final weeks of the campaign stating Caicedo would leave the club. Chelsea do want him this summer but he remains a Brighton player.
The January transfer window may come and go quickly, but resolving its consequences? That can take a little longer.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
