The transfer window is broken and this is how to fix it

There will be pals in pubs this week, with pints in hands, arguing over who should sign Jadon Sancho and Raheem Sterling.

Then that one mate will throw in his trademark horrific take, because his cousin's barber's neighbour heard Chelsea could sign Jamie Vardy. 'Him? There? You're getting the next round for that.'

Yet there was a time when transfer windows did not exist, all of English football having until the end of March to sign and sell. Now, these windows dominate the summer and winter discourse, the who-goes-where rumour mill in overdrive until deadline day brings hibernation.

But a debate is brewing. Mail Sport columnist Simon Jordan has branded it a 'ridiculous restriction of trade', suggesting the two-window system should be scrapped.

We gathered our experts to discuss that very idea and began with the good, the bad and the ugly about having two transfer windows.

Hear from Sami Mokbel, Ian Ladyman, Matt Barlow, Mike Keegan, Kieran Gill, Chris Sutton and League Managers Association chairman Martin O'Neill below. 

SAMI: For some supporters, victories in the transfer market are more euphoric than three points on a Saturday. In a social media age, it's no longer a sub-plot. More the main storyline. There's a sadness in that because it detracts from the actual football. But it undeniably provides supporters with thrilling entertainment, like daily episodes of your favourite soap opera.

IAN: I firmly believe the transfer window should stay. If it didn't exist, clubs with money could buy players at the drop of a hat, just to cover for injury or loss of form. The down side is the summer window in particular can lead to a mad rush at the death. But it doesn't have to be this way. How often do you see Manchester City splurging right at the end? Not very. The clubs who know what they are doing get their business done early and watch the others fight for players like seagulls scrapping for chips on a promenade.

CHRIS: You had to mention seagulls, didn't you? Brighton have put Celtic in an awful position this week after snatching Matt O'Riley. The £25million they're getting is nice, but it won't be much use when they're lining up to compete in the Champions League next month without their best player. Now Celtic have less than a week to find cover on the cheap. That is a massive con. There is no way a window should remain open when a season has started, so don't try to tell me otherwise.

MARTIN: That's right. You're going along merrily, you've done pre-season, you're a few games in, but then you lose a player. Sometimes too late to find a replacement. It disrupts everything. It affects the club negatively. It can hit you out of nowhere and that does present a problem.

MATT: I agree there isn't much to like about the transfer market. The swirl of millions is basically what attracts so much of what's wrong from greedy agents bleeding money from the game to outright human trafficking... but it's a necessary evil. You can't go back to the days before Wilf Mannion and George Eastham fought for the right to move clubs.

MIKE: The biggest pro is in a league where money dictates everything and distorts the playing field, this system provides some security for the have-nots. The last thing the Premier League needs is the top clubs hovering over smaller sides and swooping for their players throughout the entirety of the season. One con that may turn into a bigger issue is the current system leaves clubs vulnerable to approaches outside of that window, such as from Saudi Arabia.

KIERAN: Speaking of Saudi millions, if there were no windows, Newcastle could simply have signed their way out of trouble when they had that injury crisis last November. Instead, they used a 17-year-old local lad called Lewis Miley. Windows at least force Premier League clubs to actually look at their academies in between, which can only be good.

WHAT IF WE WENT BACK TO THE OLD MARCH DEADLINE?

MATT: Think of Aston Villa last year. Would there have been a raid on Ollie Watkins if only the March deadline was in play? Could Manchester United have raided Everton for Jarrad Branthwaite when they lost centre halves? Would it be better or worse for those on the PSR tightrope? I'm not sure I know. I guess it would help some and not others. It feels like the market is wild enough as it is without making it a complete free-for-all.

CHRIS: I played before and after 2002 when the transfer windows we know today were introduced. We never found it troublesome that we could be traded until March. It was normal. But that was a time when if you wanted confirmation that you'd had a s*** game, you'd read the newspapers' player ratings. Nowadays, you'd have thousands of trolls on social media saying you should be sold, so I don't know if it would work. What I do know is the two windows have made it all more jumbled. Smaller clubs get absolutely screwed. If the big boys think they don't have enough, they'll exploit you. They know you need the money, they know they can turn heads, and they know you know the clock is ticking.

IAN: I don't necessarily think it favours big clubs. Smaller clubs can play the market well. Look at Brighton. Buy small. Sell big. Reinvest. The bigger clubs often get desperate – it's not just Chelsea – and it's then that the smaller clubs can make their money.

SAMI: Big clubs will always have the upper hand because they have the most money. Whether there's two windows a year, or a constant market, players will always be attracted to the biggest clubs, partly because of the prestige but primarily for the wages.

MARTIN: Everybody got used to the March deadline, whether they liked it or not, but it was only with the change to the summer and winter that people felt awkward. As a manager, I felt the problem with the windows is the season has started. If you're with a medium Premier League team and you have some real assets, you don't want to lose them. But there's the possibility that somebody makes an offer the club cannot refuse. You are almost being held hostage. If there has to be two windows like this, I'd have the summer one ending before the season starts. Whatever you have in your dressing room, that's what you've got. But I'm looking at it from a managerial viewpoint, not necessarily an owner's.

DO YOU WANT IT TO STAY AS IS? WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

MIKE: If it ain't broke…

KIERAN: I asked the owner-chairman of a Premier League club that very question yesterday as I figured he'd have a better perspective than me. Talking anonymously, of course, he text back: 'If we went back to no transfer window, the pressure would be 24/7, 365 days a year, to buy more players. It used to be horrendous, but now it's limited to transfer windows. I prefer windows.' I get that argument. Imagine if Manchester United didn't score against Leicester or Ipswich or Everton when they play those three back-to-back in November. Social media would be on fire, demanding that a striker is signed. Plus, Sami would never get any sleep if there were transfer stories flying around all day, every day.

SAMI: I like the drama, but the prospect of chasing transfer stories for the entire season frightens the life out of me. The final days of both windows are hugely entertaining and while it's a headache for sporting directors – and journalists – it adds super entertainment in between matches. It would lose its X factor if transfers were permitted all year round. I don't want the windows scrapped. But I would like to see the summer one close before the start of the season. Then it would be recruitment department versus recruitment department. Let the scouting begin.

MATT: Unilateral changes would have limited impact. It'd be like Brexit for English football. You might get random deals with far-flung leagues like Saudi Arabia but artificial windows will still be in effect as far as European transfers are concerned. It would take even more money than it does now to persuade a French or German club to sell when their windows are shut. It might be more understandable if the whole of Europe scrapped the August deadline.

IAN: As Martin says, ideally the summer window would close before the season starts. But managers moaning should remember they tried this and, two years later, the Premier League clubs voted for the system to return to how it is now. Having a window that closed while the rest of Europe was still trading didn't work. It meant our players could be picked off.

MIKE: I don't see an issue with the way it is. There's a sense of finality and an emphasis on making sure you identify the right players to cope with every eventuality. If you allow clubs to sign players whenever they want, you remove a large element of that.

KIERAN: Personally, I'd place the January window in its own bomb squad. Get rid. Not happy with the strength of your squad at the halfway mark? Tough. That's what the summer was for.

CHRIS: That would be an extreme overhaul but in a way, I agree. Certainly I'd prefer it if there was no summer trading allowed once the season has started, and you'll find plenty of players, current and former, who say the same.

KIERAN: What's the alternative if the two windows were scrapped?

IAN: We would have to go back to the March deadline. If it was open all year round, you would see clubs desperately buying players in April to win the title or stave off relegation. That would impact on the integrity of the game and we can't have that.

MATT: Absolutely. You would have to impose the old March deadline. You can't open the market to clubs trading players on the eve of the final fixture of the season. The March deadline still exists in the National League. If the wealthiest team in the National League loses their best centre forward, they buy another from down the food chain. This would simply happen on a grander scale if we were to open the market from June to March. Manchester City lose Erling Haaland in September for a year, and they raid Brentford for Ivan Toney if he's still around. Then Brentford consult their algorithms and raid somebody in the Championship. And so on.

IS IT AS CHAOTIC ON THE INSIDE AS IT APPEARS ON THE OUTSIDE?

MARTIN: Oh absolutely. If you have saleable assets, you worry about losing them. If you think your squad is not big enough, you try to do something about it. It can become chaotic. I'm probably adding to the chaos by suggesting a transfer window of a lesser time, cutting it by 14, 15, 16 days. But regardless of what happens, there will always be business getting done at the last minute. I do think it would be fair if the transfer window ended before the season starts.

CHRIS: None of my transfers felt chaotic when I was at the centre of them. Maybe not including the time I was in a prison cell the night before I signed for Blackburn from Norwich. I'd gone out to celebrate and, in my drunken haze, dived headfirst into a convertible Mini which did some damage. The coppers tracked me down to a nearby nightclub and let me sober up down at the station. Thankfully, Kenny Dalglish laughed it off, and I'd like to think winning the Premier League in my first season went some way to repaying Blackburn's faith in me. But overall, my moves were seamless, all handled amicably. Martin wants me at Celtic? Happy days. I want out of Chelsea. Let's get it done. It sounds like I should consider myself lucky. You never found me hanging around the gates of a training ground begging to be let in so I avoided all this chaos.

MIKE: It depends on the situation the club find themselves in. There have been plenty of chaotic windows at Old Trafford, and who can forget the deadline day cock-up to end all deadline day cock-ups when Manchester United failed to meet Marouane Fellaini's £23.5m release clause from Everton because they thought it was too expensive? With the clock ticking to midnight, United, increasingly desperate, ended up paying £27.5m.

IAN: The worst time for a catch-up with a manager or chief executive is the last week of the summer window. Chances are they aren't going to take your call as they simply won't have the time or mental energy. There is only one contender for my favourite transfer window tale. The story to beat all stories. August 31, 2008. Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi has just bought Manchester City. Whilst trying – and failing – to hijack Manchester United's deal for Tottenham's Dimitar Berbatov, City are negotiating with Real Madrid for the Brazilian star Robinho. A member of City's media team is asked to fax a £30m offer to the Bernabeu as the deadline approaches, only to place the paper in the machine upside down. Instead of receiving an offer for their player from what has just become the richest club in the world, staff at the Spanish super-club finds themselves staring at a blank piece of paper. The deal still gets done…

KIERAN: It is a playground for sensational stories. Donkeys ago, I remember hearing how Newcastle were trying to convince a foreign player to sign for them. Word is he was told 'it's only an hour from London' which made him happy. They neglected to mention that was by private jet.

MIKE: It happens outside of the Premier League, too, of course. With the fans in uproar over a lack of goals, one EFL club chairman gave his manager a list of three strikers within financial reach. The manager, a stubborn sort, wasn't overly keen on any of them but did say he favoured one over the rest. The chairman went away and agreed a fee of £90,000, but the manager refused to sanction the move. As the goal drought continued and deadline day loomed large, the manager went back to the chairman, admitted he was wrong and asked if they could resurrect the deal. They could, but the fee was now £150,000, not far off a club record. The player, who scored a hatful and was subsequently sold on for £1m, had to be dragged out of a working men's club to sign. The headline in the local paper the next day proclaimed that the manager 'had finally got his man' after 'a long and protracted chase'.

SAMI: The windows are madness because they are always evolving. What was true at 10am is incorrect at 10.30am. It's a dangerous game as a journalist.