The Silence of Summer

As a football supporter, there is nothing worse than the period between the end of May and the beginning of August (unless there is a world cup or European Championship to occupy your time for a few weeks). There is too much time with too little happening and you have to rely on idle speculation from newspapers and the internet – and we all know how reliable they are.

The problem is, it brings unrealistic expectations from most fans – as they are constantly linked with expensive players that they couldn’t possibly afford – but the media like to fill column inches. These deals then don’t happen and the fans then feel they are let down by their club for not buying the big name they were linked with in the first place.

I realise that this is a frustrating time of year, but supporters need to learn a few skills during the summer.

1. Patience – most clubs don’t do their dealings in the first week of June, the summer is a long time and just because you don’t hear anything doesn’t mean its not happening.

2. Realism – Most clubs have limited funds to spend on wages, transfer fees etc. They aren’t suddenly going to become overnight billionaires without any obvious signs of new ownership. As such, if you haven’t sold a player for £10m recently its unlikely you are going to sign one for that amount in the next week. Managers work within their means, particularly in the current economic climate. Nobody is going to spend what they don’t have.

3. Aims & Ambitions - Sometimes it is not who you buy – its who you don’t sell that is the key. For a club with limited finances, sometimes the main priority is to hold on to your star players over the summer. Sometimes the easy option would be to sell a big name for £20m to reinvest, but there is a skill in keeping your squad together as well that of buying a new one.

4. Trust – As an Everton supporter, I am in a fortunate position that I trust our manager to know what he wants and what’s best for the club. This is real life – not Football Manager, if the manager wants or doesn’t want a player – trust their judgement that they will add something to the club.

It is hard not to get frustrated over the summer, when your club aren’t signing players and your club don’t appear to have any money. However, don’t worry, in 6 weeks the transfer window will close and we can forget about it all til January and just concentrate on winning and losing football matches instead – won’t that make a refreshing change.