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Seven goals, several outbursts and one odd artwork: Mourinho's Fenerbahce debut

Published

4 hours ago

July 25, 2024

Seven goals, several outbursts and one odd artwork: Mourinho's Fenerbahce debut

It’s the day before his first competitive game as Fenerbahce manager and Jose Mourinho has been accosted.

He is heading away from his pre-match press conference for the Champions League second-round qualifier against Lugano of Switzerland when he’s stopped by a man named Kai, a technician with the local media. Kai presents him with a large piece of art, depicting Mourinho with his two children. From the look of his hair in the picture, it’s based on an image that is probably at least 15 years old.

Mourinho looks slightly baffled at first, joking that he thought Kai, with his big mass of curly hair “was (Marc) Cucurella”. But he does actually seem relatively touched (well: half touched, half amused) and gets someone else to take a picture of him and Kai holding the art.

“He’s the Special One!” says Kai afterwards, and he genuinely did say that. “Usually you can’t get near someone like him, so I just wanted to show him he’s appreciated and give him some of my art.”

The Athletic regrets to inform you that Mourinho didn’t actually take the piece with him. There’s a brief conversation about framing it, but Kai goes back to his work with the art under his arm. I hope he gets it to him somehow.

Jose Mourinho and Kai, with his piece of artwork (Nick Miller/The Athletic)

If nothing else, this illustrates that Mourinho still engenders a peculiar brand of fascination. You can say you don’t if you like, but you did click on this article. You must be keen to find out something about him, even if you think you’re rubbernecking at the wreckage of a once great career. He is still compelling, sometimes in a grim way, sometimes through flashes of the old Jose, the occasional flicker of a fading sun.

The classic perception of Turkish football is that it is a pseudo retirement home, a place for players who aren’t quite up to the top leagues anymore. It is a little unfair, but there is some truth to it.

As such, it is easy to think that Mourinho accepting the Fenerbahce role — five months after Roma sacked him — is an admission that he just can’t hack the big jobs anymore. At 61, with a hall-of-fame CV in his past, he has retreated to a relative footballing backwater for the same reason that all those players have.

The other way of looking at it is that it’s incredible he hasn’t managed in Turkey before. This is a footballing country that thrives on chaos and conflict, which fosters paranoia and a sense of injustice that isn’t always pretty to watch but is viscerally thrilling.

Is this part of his decline, or is it where he’s always meant to be?

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This is technically the earliest point in a season, by the calendar at least, that Mourinho has taken charge of a competitive game, though he has managed at a similar stage before: his Tottenham Hotspur side played Bulgaria’s Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the Europa League second qualifying round in 2020-21.

Still, rather than feeling self-conscious about a man of his reputation participating at such an early stage, he spun it as a positive. “I don’t like friendlies,” he said the day before the game. “We train to play matches. And tomorrow we have a match.”

Lugano’s 6,300-capacity stadium was deemed unacceptable by UEFA for such an occasion, so the game is held 135 miles away in Thun, just south of Bern. Thun is a delightful, quiet lakeside town. It is the sort of place where a bus driver can stop for a chat with a friend without anyone getting annoyed. Try that sort of thing in London, Rome, Milan or Madrid and see how far it gets you.

The Storkhorn Arena, the venue for this game and home of FC Thun, who play in the Swiss second tier, is a curious place. New, out of town, theoretically picturesque given that it is surrounded by cloud-tipped mountains, but you have to walk around the shopping centre that is part of the same complex to actually see those mountains.

Despite this technically being the home game of the two-legged tie for Lugano, their supporters are massively outnumbered. Two and a half hours before kick-off, a few hundred Fenerbahce fans are already waiting for their team to arrive (although they’re ultimately disappointed: Jose et al are smuggled in via an underground entrance). At one point, a small group wearing the shirts of Galatasaray, Fenerbahce’s fierce rivals, turn up and are initially booed, but then briefly applauded.

Fenerbahce fans gather at Thun’s Storkhorn Arena (Nick Miller/The Athletic)

This early arrival isn’t necessarily an expression of pro-Mourinho enthusiasm: this is just what Fenerbahce fans specifically, and Turkish football fans generally, are like. Still, there is a sense of incredulity that Mourinho is at their club: he is their first manager with a Champions League/European Cup title on his CV since Guus Hiddink in 1990. “It’s an amazing thing for Fenerbahce,” says Okan, one of the fans waiting outside, before offering a warning. “But if he doesn’t win the title, he’ll just end up like all the others.”

Indeed. Mourinho has a tough act to follow. Last season, Fenerbahce won 99 points, the highest total in their history, and it would have been the highest in Turkish Super Lig history had Galatasaray not finished on 102, pipping them to the title. Coach Ismail Kartal might have reasonably expected to get a second crack, but no dice: a week after the season ended, Kartal was shoved out of the back door as Mourinho was welcomed through the front.

Mourinho is here partly as a political pawn, a Hail Mary attempt by club president Ali Koc to finally win a league title. Fenerbahce haven’t been Turkish champions since 2014, the longest dry spell in their history. Koc, from one of the wealthiest families in Turkey, was seen as the man to bring glory back to the Asian side of Istanbul, but his failure to deliver a title could well have seen him voted out at their presidential elections this summer.

Particularly when it was made known that his opponent, former club president Aziz Yildirim, had lined Mourinho up as coach if he won the election. But then, hey presto: Koc, with the help of Hull City owner Acun Ilicali, who is also on the Fenerbahce board, pulled a rabbit from a hat and it emerged that, plot twist, it was he who was talking to Mourinho. A week after Mourinho was unveiled in front of 30,000 fans at Fenerbahce’s Sukru Saracoglu Stadium, Koc was re-elected with 61 per cent of the vote.

When he emerged from the tunnel before the game, Mourinho headed straight to embrace his opposite number, Mattia Croci-Torti.

The Lugano manager is one of Swiss football’s up-and-coming coaches and a lifelong Inter Milan fan, so facing the man who won the treble with them in 2010 carried extra significance. “It will be a source of personal pride to face a coach like him,” Croci-Torti, 42, said before the game, “because it may never happen again.”

Mourinho had some advice for his opposite number Mattia Croci-Torti, the Lugano head coach (Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Those pre-match cordialities were a distant memory when, just before half-time, Fenerbahce were awarded a penalty, which Croci-Torti protested with a little too much vigour for Mourinho’s liking. He stalks up the touchline to remonstrate with his opponent, in the manner of a wise old head telling the hot-headed young thing how one should behave.

“He was like myself when I was younger,” Mourinho says after the game, with a slightly wistful grin. “Speaks too much. Complains too much. It’s the emotion of youth. He was lucky because when I did it, always a red card.”

Before that penalty, Mourinho’s debut hadn’t been going well. Fenerbahce are behind after just four minutes, with some sharp work by Ayman El Wafi putting Lugano in front. On the touchline, Mourinho’s frustration grows — 12 minutes in, his hands are on his hips in the manner of a disappointed mother after Jayden Oosterwolde is dispossessed carelessly; his arms are outstretched after the ball is given away in midfield; he shoots an exasperated glance back to his bench when a corner doesn’t beat the first man.

But it’s all fairly low-energy irritation, more the grumblings of an old man tired of life than the sort of raging against the world we remember from Mourinho of days gone by. Until, that is, Dusan Tadic is fouled inside the box on the stroke of half-time for that penalty. Edin Dzeko converts, but it almost feels like it was Mourinho remonstrating with young Croci-Torti that has lit the spark, rather than simply the goal.

Everything is amped up after the break. Mourinho is much more animated and, after some brilliant footwork by Tadic and a perfectly timed run and finish by Dzeko, they’re ahead. For the rest of the game, they’re much more fluent — more than you might expect from a Jose Mourinho side. There’s a brief scare when Lugano equalise, but the 38-year-old Dzeko completes his hat-trick and substitute Ferdi Kadioglu whips one into the bottom corner. They ultimately win 4-3.

“It was a game with seven goals,” Mourinho said after the game. “People like goals,” he added, and there’s a delicious pause where you think he’s going to say, ‘I don’t care for them quite so much myself…’, but he doesn’t. This is, after all, a man who once described an Arsenal vs Tottenham game that finished 5-4 as a “hockey score”.

Mourinho congratulates Ferdi Kadioglu for scoring Fenerbahce’s fourth goal (Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Mourinho doesn’t quite celebrate these goals with the knee slides or coat-flapping dashes of old, but there was a primal roar, particularly from the last two. There are more glimpses of classic Mourinho in his post-match comments, including a lengthy gripe about the artificial pitch — “Honestly, I don’t understand why UEFA allow Champions League games on a plastic pitch” — about Lugano not returning the ball to Fenerbahce following an injury and, of course, about the referee. Mourinho changes, but at his core, he’s still the same old Jose.

When you think about Mourinho managing in a country that is ranked ninth in UEFA’s league coefficients, it is difficult not to remember the time that he sniffily put down Manuel Pellegrini, saying that if Real Madrid were to fire him he would never have to stoop so low as to manage Malaga, as Pellegrini had.

From that perspective, you could be forgiven for revelling in his perceived fall. You could also be forgiven for wondering why he still bothers. He could happily sit back and enjoy retirement, enjoy his money, enjoy life.

Mourinho in a typically forthright mood at the post-match press conference (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Fenerbahce offers the things that Mourinho appears to need. It’s a colossal club in a city and a country that thrives on all the things he thrives on. It’s a club that uses conflict as fuel, as does he. Watching him during this game — stalking up and down the touchline, yelling at his players, picking a fight with a manager 20 years his junior who is taking charge of his first Champions League game — you realise why he hasn’t given it up. What would he be without it?

Mourinho and Fenerbahce and Turkish football might be the perfect combination. Or they could be a cocktail that blows up with more force than any of them can cope with. It really could go either way.

Mourinho tends to thrive when his club needs him more than he needs them, or at least when he can realistically perceive that to be true. And Fenerbahce need him.

This game won’t be the start of Mourinho’s most glorious era — his great achievements are almost certainly in the past — but it might be the start of Mourinho’s most ‘Mourinho’ era. You get the feeling this is perfect for him.

It’s going to be worth watching, whatever happens.

(Top photo: Piero Cruciatti/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Culture

USWNT defender Tierna Davidson on 'difficult situation' created by Korbin Albert's previous posts

Published

11 hours ago

July 25, 2024

Press Room

USWNT defender Tierna Davidson on 'difficult situation' created by Korbin Albert's previous posts

U.S. women’s national team defender Tierna Davidson has described anti-LGBTQ social media posts previously shared by teammate Korbin Albert as creating “a difficult situation that has obviously affected me personally given what she was speaking on.”

Davidson, who is openly queer, went on Sarah Spain’s podcast, “Good Game with Sarah Spain”, and talked about her feelings regarding Albert’s actions, which included a repost of a sermon given in a Christian worship space talking about how being gay and “feeling transgender” is wrong.

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Albert apologized for the post on her Instagram, which recirculated in March 2024. Since then USWNT head coach Emma Hayes has publicly backed Albert, saying in a June press conference, “There’s no denying there’s been a lot of work that’s been going on in the background to work with Korbin.”

On Spain’s podcast, Davidson said, “I think that it’s difficult, because as a team we have always wanted to be very welcoming to all of our fans, to all players that walk through the locker room, and so to have that in our space is very difficult.”

The USWNT has previously used its platform to support trans rights, among other topics, both individually and collectively. In 2022 during the SheBelieves Cup, players wore wrist tape bearing the message “Protect Trans Kids.” The gesture came during a game in Texas, where, at the time, Texas governor Greg Abbott referred to children transitioning as “child abuse” and directed licensed professionals who work with children to report the parents of trans children to state authorities.

“Whether or not it’s something that you grew up with, or it was instilled upon you from a young age and you might not know better, it is something that can hurt other people,” Davidson said.

“It was difficult for me when it first happened, and it’s been hard to hear how fans have been taking it because I feel like I want to be able to represent the queer community really well on this team. I want to have fans feel really welcome and feel like they can see themselves on this field in this team. I don’t want there to be any sort of feeling that they’re not welcome here.”

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USWNT’s Tierna Davidson on being a quiet leader: ‘I take the role very seriously’

Davidson also said she thought Albert had “gone through a lot of learning,” in accord with Hayes’ statements about any possible private conversations being held within the team.

“We have to learn from what we do in our lives and how people react to it, and understand the hurt that we can cause,” said Davidson. “I have always believed in the ability for people to learn and for people to change and to evolve and that sometimes requires a very difficult experience, and I think this is that moment for her…. It’s up to her. But I think she’s continuing to do that education and it’s important she expresses that as she learns. So I think the ball’s kind of in her court for that.”

Davidson also spoke to Spain about Hayes’ work with the team in the short time they’ve had to prepare for the Olympics, including trying to instill more tactical flexibility into the team and being able to adjust to various opposition tactics on the field.

Davidson said, “I really feel like we’re playing a chess match… You might notice some differences. Certainly you might notice players in different positions, but also how we’re moving the ball, the spaces we want to get into or how we get there.”

Davidson’s comment on Albert can be heard in full at the 26:44 mark in Spain’s podcast.

(Photo: Harry How, Getty Images)

Culture

Coco Gauff to be flag bearer for Team USA at Paris Olympics

Published

18 hours ago

July 24, 2024

Press Room

Coco Gauff to be flag bearer for Team USA at Paris Olympics

Coco Gauff will become the first tennis player in history to act as Team USA flag bearer when she joins LeBron James at the opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Gauff, 20, is the world No. 2 and defending U.S. Open champion. She will also become the youngest American flag bearer in Olympic history, overtaking Cindy Nelson, who fulfilled the role at the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Games in Austria.

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Gauff is representing Team USA in the women’s singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, joining world No. 6 Jessica Pegula in the women’s doubles and men’s No. 11 Taylor Fritz in the mixed event.

She had initially been selected to play in the Tokyo Games, but a COVID-19 diagnosis forced her to sit out in 2021.

I just want to say thank you to my fellow team usa olympians/athletes for voting and choosing me for this incredible honor to be the flag bearer for the opening ceremony ❤️. Thank you so much. I am incredibly honored. 🥹🇺🇸
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) July 24, 2024

The favorite for the singles title is world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has won the last three French Open titles at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, the venue for the Olympic tennis events. Swiatek has an 11-1 head-to-head record against Gauff, including a recent victory in the semifinals of this year’s French Open in June.

Gauff, who won the women’s doubles title at that tournament with partner Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, will hope to defeat her during the Games, where Siniakova will play with Wimbledon champion and 10-time doubles Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova.

The draws for the tennis events will take place Thursday at 11 a.m. in Paris/5 a.m. ET.

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'Bleak', 'Gutting', 'Disastrous': What was your Premier League club's worst transfer window and why?

Published

1 day ago

July 24, 2024

Press Room

'Bleak', 'Gutting', 'Disastrous': What was your Premier League club's worst transfer window and why?

When transfer windows go right, they can set a manager and a team up for a successful season or kick off a new era.

When they go wrong, however, they can go very wrong.

From the early departures of managers after a disappointing summer to relegations or even financial turmoil, a disappointing transfer window can prove disastrous for clubs.

Having already brought you our selection of the best transfer windows for each club last week, now it’s time to look at those that didn’t quite work out so well.

Get the latest transfer news on The Athletic¬

Worst window: Summer 2015

If there was a window to sum up the frustrations with Arsenal’s passivity in the market it was summer 2015, when their only signing was a 33-year-old goalkeeper.

Though that goalkeeper was Petr Cech — who later kept 16 clean sheets to win the Golden Glove — the 2015-16 campaign was one of opportunity. Arsenal’s traditional rivals faltered and they finished second, 10 points behind Leicester City and there has always been a thought of ‘what if’ had they invested in even one outfield player that summer.

A close runner-up is the summer window of 2011. Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy — all entering their mid-20s — left despite being vital parts of Arsene Wenger’s side. Arsenal then signed Gervinho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and although their deadline-day dash brought Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker, it was a scattergun end to a gutting summer.

Art de Roché

Should Arsenal have gone stronger in summer 2015? (Ian Kington/AFP via Getty Images)

Worst window: Summer 2015

The summer of 2015 was when everything went wrong. The season started — and basically ended — in Bournemouth on the opening day, where new signing Rudy Gestede scored the only goal to give Villa three points and the only sense of optimism in an altogether horrendous campaign, finishing rank bottom with 17 points.

That opening-day win served as a false dawn, with Micah Richards captain and one of 12 new signings that joined. Gestede came and went, the three Jordans — Ayew, Veretout and Amavi — became annoyingly good once they left Villa, as did a young Adama Traore.

Scott Sinclair was already on the slide and Joleon Lescott’s time at Villa would be known for his apparent accidental tweeting of a new car immediately after relegation was sealed. Idrissa Gueye was the only solid buy. A bleak summer.

Jacob Tanswell

Worst window: Summer 2022

Bournemouth’s hit rate since their first promotion to the Premier League in 2015 has been good, based on recruiting unearthed gems and, recently, young talent from abroad.

Still, Scott Parker’s brief top-flight stay in 2022 was littered with in-fighting and squabbles over recruitment, exacerbated by the ownership flux, with incoming owner Bill Foley waiting to be rubber-stamped.

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It meant Parker had what he viewed as little support in the market, claiming his side were “under-equipped”. Goalkeeper Neto and midfielder Joe Rothwell signed for free, while resources stretched to sign Marcus Tavernier and Marcos Senesi — two good players who are flourishing under Andoni Iraola, but not who Parker wanted.

Jacob Tanswell

Worst window: Summer 2022

Fans thought the 2020 window had been a disaster after Brentford lost the Championship play-off final to their west London rivals Fulham and then sold Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma. But Ivan Toney and Vitaly Janelt arrived and Brentford finished the season by winning the play-offs so it looks far better in hindsight.

The reverse logic could be applied to 2022. Keane Lewis-Potter, Aaron Hickey and Mikkel Damsgaard were signed for around £45million ($58.1m at today’s conversion rates) combined but injuries and dips in form mean they have not shown their best. Thomas Strakosha arrived as competition for David Raya but left after two years having made more appearances for Albania (12) than Brentford during that time (six). Ben Mee joined for free but Christian Eriksen turned down a contract to join Manchester United.

It may be too soon to definitively call this their worst window in history but it certainly stands out as being below par by Brentford’s lofty standards over the last decade.

Jay Harris

Worst window: January 2018

Brighton’s business has not always been as good as it has been in the majority of recent windows.

The outcomes were sketchy when they were still finding their feet as a Premier League club after promotion in 2017.

In January 2018, they splashed out around £14million on Jurgen Locadia, a club-record outlay at that time. The forward proved a big disappointment, playing only 46 games and scoring six goals. Brighton make big annual profits now, but they were still incurring substantial losses back then, so it was a costly mistake.

Jurgen Locadia was a club-record signing at the time (Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

The same was true of Alireza Jahanbakhsh in the summer of 2018 for £17million from AZ Alkmaar, but fans still fondly recall the Iran winger’s overhead kick against Chelsea. Also, his arrival was accompanied by Yves Bissouma and Jason Steele.

Andy Naylor

Chelsea

Worst window: Summer 2017

The disastrous summer of 2017 still sparks shudders in Chelsea supporters.

Fresh from winning the Premier League title, Antonio Conte felt he had earned a big voice in Chelsea’s recruitment. He submitted a list of high-profile targets that included Romelu Lukaku, Virgil van Dijk, Alex Sandro, Radja Nainggolan and Kyle Walker.

Chelsea tried to bring Lukaku back from Everton but were outflanked by Jose Mourinho and Manchester United, before pivoting to Alvaro Morata of Real Madrid. Conte also had to settle for Davide Zappacosta (Torino), Tiemoue Bakayoko (Monaco) and Danny Drinkwater (Leicester City), with the latter pair becoming liabilities long before they were released as free agents.

Danny Drinkwater was among Chelsea’s 2017 signings (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

The sale of Nemanja Matic to United for £40million aged well but deprived Conte of vital midfield experience. The club also took a loss on sending Juan Cuadrado back to Serie A and sold Nathan Ake to Bournemouth for £20million — much less than his peak transfer value.

Liam Twomey

Worst window: Summer 2017

A memorable window for all the wrong reasons with Palace’s new manager Frank de Boer sacked 10 days after it closed, just four games into the Premier League season — all of which his team lost, all without scoring.

Mamadou Sakho joined from Liverpool for £26million after an excellent loan spell in the second half of 2016-17 but was unable to reach those same levels again. Jairo Riedewald arrived from Ajax for £8m, and although he proved to be an excellent mentor for the club’s younger players, his contribution on the pitch was limited. He did, however, spend seven seasons at Palace covering various positions and made 106 appearances in all competitions.

Midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek impressed to such an extent on a season’s loan from Chelsea that he made the England squad for the following summer’s World Cup, but Timothy Fosu-Mensah struggled at right-back after being loaned from Manchester United.

The squad had been insufficiently strengthened in this window but De Boer’s replacement Roy Hodgson was still able to guide them to an 11th-place finish.

Matt Woosnam

Everton

Worst window: Summer 2017

There is an obvious answer here for anyone who follows Everton; one that shines a light on the glaring dysfunction of the Farhad Moshiri years.

Let’s go back to the summer of 2017 and the arrival of not one, not two… not even three… but four No 10s in the form of Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Davy Klaassen and Nikola Vlasic.

Mad, right? Well, that’s what happens when so many different people are feeding into the recruitment process — owners, board members, managers and other staff — and each one gets a pick. The bizarre splurge left Ronald Koeman’s side lacking balance — particularly out wide — and also led to financial problems later on.

A case study on how not to do your recruitment.

Patrick Boyland

Davy Klaassen failed to impress (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Fulham

Worst window: Summer 2012

There have been some bad windows at Craven Cottage in recent years.

The summer of 2015 did bring Tim Ream, Tom Cairney and Ryan Fredericks, but it also brought nine other new players, the most notable of which was Jamie O’Hara. January 2014, meanwhile, saw a record fee spent on a striker, Kostas Mitroglou, who would play only 151 minutes (three appearances, zero goals) in the club’s unsuccessful fight against relegation.

But the winner here is the one at the start of the 2012-13 season.

It set in motion a tricky decade, as Fulham sold Clint Dempsey and Mousa Dembele, their crown jewels at that time, to Tottenham Hotspur and their only signing that paid off was Dimitar Berbatov. The Bulgarian striker was a popular addition, but on his own couldn’t stem the tide.

This window marked the start of a downward spiral which would end in relegation the following season, and then four years in the Championship.

Peter Rutzler

Worst window: Summer 2020

Both of Ipswich’s summer windows pre-relegation featured costly mistakes: in 2001, destabilising a unified squad, and in 2018, replacing Championship players on the cheap with those of predominantly League One quality.

But for the sheer volume of underwhelming signings, the 2020 summer transfer window takes it.

After ending the previous season 11th in League One — the club’s lowest finish since 1953 — just three permanent signings were made. David Cornell, Oliver Hawkins and Stephen Ward on free transfers in a feeble attempt to escape the third tier.

Only Ward became a regular and striker Hawkins managed just a single goal. All three left the club after one season.

Ali Rampling

Leicester City

Worst window: Summer 2021

After just missing out on Champions League qualification in the previous two seasons, Leicester were looking to push to the next level as 2021-22 approached.

The business they did that summer may not have set the wheels in motion for a decline which brought relegation less than two years later, but it certainly was a factor. A total of £55million went on Patson Daka, Jannik Vestergaard and Boubakary Soumare, while Ryan Bertrand joined on a free.

Besides a few promising moments, striker Daka has not had the impact expected, and midfielder Soumare has also been a disappointment. Denmark international centre-back Vestergaard looked at first to be a disaster of a signing until his performances in the Championship last season earned him a new contract. Champions League winner and former England international Bertrand’s spell at Leicester was a mishap, due mostly to injuries, and he retired this summer aged 34.

The reality for clubs of Leicester’s stature is they must be prudent in recruitment and reinvest after selling a major asset. They cannot afford to get it wrong.

In summer 2021, when they didn’t sell a major asset, that’s exactly what happened.

Rob Tanner

Worst window: Summer 2010

Rewind 14 years to the 2010-11 pre-season, and Liverpool were in a mess. Rafael Benitez’s reign had just ended, debts were piling up under the hated ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and fan protests were gathering pace.

Liverpool appointed Roy Hodgson as manager at the start of July and, with money tight, what followed proved to be a dreadful transfer window.

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The hype that surrounded signing Joe Cole on a free transfer from Chelsea proved misplaced, as the England midfielder flopped badly. Milan Jovanovic was another free-agent arrival that summer who ended up costing Liverpool a fortune in wages.

The names Christian Poulsen (£4.5million from Juventus) and Paul Konchesky (a reported £3.5m from Fulham) still send a shiver down a Kopite’s spine as they struggled badly and looked completely out of their depth.

Raul Meireles (£11.5million from Porto) was the only one of the new arrivals to give the club any kind of return on their investment.

It was all too much for star midfielder Javier Mascherano as he pushed through a move to Barcelona before the deadline. You could hardly blame him.

James Pearce

Paul Konchesky was one of Liverpool’s stranger signings (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Worst window: Summer 2012

City famously built on their 2011-12 Premier League title by bringing in Javi Garcia, Jack Rodwell, Matija Nastasic, Scott Sinclair and Maicon.

In fairness to them, this was the same summer they also tried to sign both Robin van Persie from Arsenal, losing out to Manchester United, and Eden Hazard of Lille, who chose new European champions Chelsea instead.

City were clearly trying to put the hammer down and cement their place at the top of English football (not to mention the fact that a few months later they were pushing hard to bring in Pep Guardiola from Barcelona as manager, not long after Roberto Mancini’s finest hour).

They obviously felt the signings they did make in that window, including two young English players seen as having bags of potential, would be able to take the club forward, but none of the moves worked out and summer 2012 has gone down in history as a missed opportunity.

Sam Lee

Jack Rodwell’s move to City did not work out (Paul Thomas/Getty Images)

Manchester United

Worst window: Summer 2013

It’s the obvious answer. Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill, the chief executive, had both departed at the end of the 2012-13 title-winning season. David Moyes had arrived from Everton as the new manager. Thiago Alcantara, Leighton Baines and Ander Herrera (who they did sign a year later) were pursued but eventually fumbled before Marouane Fellaini arrived on deadline day… for £4million more than the £23m release clause which ran out a month earlier.

A special mention to the summer(ish) window of 2020-21.

Disrupted by Covid-19 and a mere 35-day gap between completing one season and beginning another, United pushed and pushed and pushed for Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho, but to no avail. Instead, Edinson Cavani, Donny van de Beek, Alex Telles and Facundo Pellistri arrived in an assorted grab-bag.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did well in the season that followed, with United runners-up in the Premier League and Europa League, League Cup semi-finalists and reaching the last eight of the FA Cup, but the club missed a crucial opportunity to back their manager while rivals were in a mild state of flux.

Carl Anka

Worst window: Summer 1997

John Barnes. Stuart Pearce. Ian Rush. How is that a bad window? Because this was 1997, not 1990. Barnes was 33, Pearce was 35 and Rush was 35.

Far worse windows (summer and winter windows were introduced in 2002) were to come in terms of talent, but this was the tipping point for the next two decades: the Kevin Keegan bubble had burst, replaced by Kenny Dalglish’s stultifying pragmatism. Jon Dahl Tomasson and Shay Given also arrived, but out went David Ginola and Les Ferdinand, and Alan Shearer had a long-term injury.

The boom was over, contraction taking hold, a club being deflated like a soiled airbed after a festival.

John Barnes joined Newcastle at the wrong end of the 1990s (Clive Brunskill /Allsport via Getty Images)

Pearce was fine, and Barnes played in all but one of Newcastle’s Champions League matches, including the 3-2 win against Barcelona. Barnes was also Newcastle’s top scorer in the league, but with just six goals — the Entertainers had been thoroughly dismantled.

The Champions League run ended at the group stage and Newcastle finished 13th in the Premier League. Joylessness loomed. The sad cherry on top? Signing Paul Dalglish. Nice work if you can get it, which you can if your dad’s the manager.

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Andrew Hankinson

Worst window: January 2020

Before Cooper, there was Sabri Lamouchi. The old line about being able to cope with the despair but it’s the hope you can’t stand, was perfectly encapsulated for Forest fans by the 2019-20 season.

Under Lamouchi, Forest enjoyed a brilliant first half of that season. There were a few dips here and there but, by the end of January, they were not just ensconced in the unfamiliar surrounds of the play-off places, but knocking on the door of the automatics too. The first XI was good, but the thing that might have pushed them over the line was a few quality additions that January.

It would be unfair to blame the players who did arrive for the eventual collapse that would see them miss out on the play-offs in that Covid-interrupted season. But it did feel fitting that one of them, the striker Nuno da Costa, scored an own goal in the 4-1 home defeat to Stoke on the final day, which drove a stake through the already pretty dead heart of Forest’s promotion hopes.

Nick Miller

Worst window: January 2018

Six words from January 2018 that are enough to bring back nightmares: Southampton sign Guido Carrillo for £19million.

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A few years on from the dreamy days of beating Inter Milan in the Europa League and Southampton’s infamous black box seemed to be faltering. Locked in a relegation battle under Mauricio Pellegrino — remember him? (Sorry for the reminder, these were desperate times.)

Needless to say, striker Carrillo, the only arrival in that window despite the sale of Virgil van Dijk, was not the answer. He scored zero goals at a cost of £1.9million per appearance.

Nancy Froston

Tottenham

Worst window: Summer 2013

Supporters had to deal with the pain of waving goodbye to Gareth Bale in 2013 and, to make matters worse, Tottenham wasted the £85million they received from Real Madrid. Roberto Soldado scored 24 times for Valencia in La Liga during the 2012-13 season, which is more than he managed (16) across 76 appearances for Spurs in all competitions.

Erik Lamela is a cult hero but never truly fulfilled his potential following a £30million move from Roma. Paulinho lasted two years before he moved to China after barely making an impact. Nacer Chadli was a useful option from the bench but Etienne Capoue and Vlad Chiriches struggled.

Apart from Lamela, the only other signing who qualified as a success was Christian Eriksen. He spent seven distinguished years with Spurs and was part of the team that came close to winning the Champions League in 2019.

Jay Harris

Worst window: Summer 2022

In the summer of 2022, West Ham spent £165million on Gianluca Scamacca, Lucas Paqueta, Emerson Palmieri, Thilo Kehrer, Maxwel Cornet, Flynn Downes, Alphonse Areola and Nayef Aguerd — the most they had spent in a window.

But integrating eight players into the team proved difficult for manager David Moyes, which led to West Ham losing five of their first seven league games.

Scamacca and Kehrer have since joined Atalanta and Monaco respectively, Cornet has been an underwhelming signing, while West Ham are open to offers for Aguerd and Downes could rejoin Southampton having returned from his season-long loan. Only Paqueta, Palmieri and Areola have improved the side.

Roshane Thomas

Worst window: Summer 2011

It may seem difficult to beat the summer of 2022, when Wolves spent a combined £80million on Matheus Nunes, Goncalo Guedes and Nathan Collins. But at least that side avoided relegation.

Eleven years earlier came a window just as poor but with worse consequences as Wolves broke up the limited but spirited squad Mick McCarthy had built and signed the higher-profile duo of Roger Johnson and Jamie O’Hara.

It was supposed to take the club to the next level — but the next level was down. Two relegations in two seasons were the result of disturbing the dressing-room dynamic.