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| Will Robert Green be the latest victim of misplaced sporting conventional wisdom? Pic: AP/Bernat Armangue |
I spent much of my
2500-word post last week defending Andre Villas-Boas (check it out below – it’s
worth a read) but, only a week later I find myself resenting him for his role
in scuppering one of the funniest transfer sagas of recent times.
American midfielder-cum-striker
Clint Dempsey had excelled for Fulham for five years since joining from New
England Revolution in 2007, so few could begrudge him his ambition of moving to
a top English club, preferably competing in the Champions League, this summer.
At 29, it was probably Dempsey’s last opportunity to make such a move.
However, showing up to
the first day of Fulham’s pre-season training proudly announcing you are on
your way to Liverpool was not the way to go about it. Particularly when
Liverpool hadn’t even made a bid. In Dempsey’s defence, one can only imagine
he’d received a tip-off from his agent that the move was already in train, but
it didn’t stop him from looking any less of a big-time Charlie when a bid
subsequently failed to materialise.
As the transfer window
drew to a close with Dempsey training with Fulham’s reserves, and the West
London club reporting Liverpool to the FA for unsettling a player who remained
contracted to them, no offer was forthcoming.
If the newspapers are
to be believed Liverpool did make a late bid on the final day of the transfer
window of around £3m - a figure that could only be considered derisory for a
player of Dempsey’s quality - but it was Tottenham and Villas-Boas who
eventually came to Dempsey’s rescue by meeting Fulham’s £6m valuation.
Dempsey had, by the
narrowest of margins, avoided becoming the latest transfer windows biggest
loser (at least on an individual level - Liverpool's failure to sign Dempsey left them with only two strikers and a manager whose preferred formation features three up front - when it comes to which club "lost" the transfer window, it's a no contest). Instead, the individual title went to another player who, unlike Dempsey, was a
relatively innocent victim in a situation not entirely of his own making.
As recently as May
this year Robert Green was playing in goal for England (keeping a clean-sheet
in a pre-Euro 2012 friendly against Norway). Now it looks as though he may
spend the rest of this season plying his trade in the Championship on loan from
Queens Park Rangers, who he only joined in June.
Green only played
three matches for his new club (who he joined after his contract expired at
West Ham United) before Rangers signed another keeper, Brazilian international
Julio Cesar from Inter Milan, who now looks set to cement a place as the club’s
number one goalkeeper.
QPR manager Mark
Hughes described the situation like this:
"It is a
challenge for everybody. What we're trying to do here is improve the quality of
the group and that includes the goalkeeping position as well.
"I said I wanted
to have two quality keepers this window if at all possible. Sometimes when
opportunities present itself you want to pursue them.
"When you get an
opportunity to possibly bring a player of Julio Cesar's quality, with his
playing record and his mentality, then I think you have to pursue it.
"I think when we
started the process we probably never thought there was an opportunity or
chance he would be able to come here. If we are able to conclude it, we'll be
delighted."
Hughes uses the word
‘opportunity’ three times in as many paragraphs, but what really sticks out is
the ruthless way the club has pursued what is essentially only an incremental
improvement.
Since Malaysian
businessman Tony Fernandes bought the club in August 2011, QPR have sought to
improve their squad at every opportunity. Whilst this is not an uncommon
strategy for clubs recently promoted to the Premier League (who often find the
players that got them there are not of sufficient quality to keep them there),
it is the complete absence of any semblance of planning that leaves QPR looking
desperate (they signed 12 news players in the last window – more than an entire
starting line up) and caused Football365’s Nick Miller to declare on Twitter
that he hoped the club would be relegated this season.
If QPR appear
desperate, it’s probably because they are. Staying in the Premier League has
well-documented financial benefits and one only needs to look at the likes of
Portsmouth to see how fragile many clubs business model’s become once the
riches of the Premier League are denied them. However, their treatment of
Robert Green seems counter-productive. It feels to me like going out and buying
a new TV, only to upgrade to a slightly better, slightly more expensive one a
week later. Although, given that Green was signed on a free, it is possibly
more like being given an old TV by a friend, only to buy a brand new TV a week
later when you see it on sale.
Nevertheless, the
point is that the most stable and successful clubs in the Premier League rarely
dispose of valuable assets quite so freely. I think of Everton, who have
performed admirably for a number of years despite being subject to testing
financial constraints. Everton’s keeper Tim Howard may not be the best keeper
in the league and Everton could possible replace him with someone better if
they were determined to do so, but he is more than serviceable (at least for
another couple of years) and he has repaid the faith the club have shown in him
with loyal service and a key role in establishing Everton as a challenger for
the European places.
Reports linking
Everton with a bid for 19-year-old Birmingham (and now England) keeper Jack
Butland in the last transfer window seemed fanciful because of the fee involved
(£6m was talked about - a lot of money for a club of Everton’s miniscule
financial resources) but had a degree of credibility because it seemed logical
for a club like Everton to look to replace Howard with a promising young keeper
at some point. It didn’t happen this transfer window but I wouldn’t be
surprised to see Butland join Everton at some point in the future if they’re
not outbid by one of the big clubs.
To bring it back to
QPR, I couldn’t help but feel for Green. In truth, Green left a very
comfortable situation at West Ham despite the offer of a new contract, looking
to benefit from the ambition shown by QPR, the same ambition of which he has
now become a victim. However, it seems incredibly unfair that the best Green
can now hope for is sitting on the bench or chasing promotion with a
Championship contender.
What sort of a
psychological impact will that have on Green? To a certain extent goalkeepers,
by their very nature, have to be adept at bouncing back from setbacks, and Green
has showed in the past that high-profile errors on international duty (with one
of his greatest gaffes coming against Dempsey during the 2010 World Cup)
haven’t massively impacted his form at club level. But the conventional wisdom
about such things is not always accurate.
I have just finished
reading Ronald Reng’s biography of another goalkeeper, German international
Robert Enke (called ‘A Life Too Short’ and winner of last year’s William Hill
Sports Book of the Year). Reng’s stirring account of an interesting,
compassionate, talented professional who also happened to suffer from depression
is one of the better sporting biographies I have read in recent times. It
doesn’t throw up too many surprises – Reng doesn’t depart much from the formula
followed by sporting biographers the world over – but its delicate treatment of
the subject of depression is both timely and fascinating.
Enke’s story provides
plenty of food for thought, but one thing that sticks with me is the
over-reliance of conventional wisdom in sport. Enke was, I suspect, far from
conventional even without taking into account his depression. What Reng makes
clear is that depression as an illness makes life’s challenges seem
insurmountable, sometimes irrespective of how great they appear to others. I
therefore do not wish to suggest that Enke simply could not “hack” the competition
and pressure of being Germany’s number one keeper and this is what “caused” his
depression. It may have contributed to certain episodes but that is almost
beside the point.
The way Enke was able
to establish himself as Germany’s best goalkeeper at a mid-table club like
Hannover 96 where he was the undisputed number one, following setbacks at
Barcelona and Fenerbache, goes against the conventional wisdom that goalkeepers
require competition to produce their best. Enke was the consummate professional
and his own harshest critic. I suspect that many professionals are the same. Enke’s
triumph over the conventional wisdom is remarkable (even before taking his
illness into account). At the same time, such defiance was probably the secret
of his success.
To be clear, I’m not
suggesting that Robert Green is at risk of throwing himself in front of a train
as Enke did. Green is his own man and may be more comfortable with the
conventional sporting wisdom. He may relish the opportunity of dropping down to
the Championship and enjoying playing football out of the spotlight. He may be
able to turn this setback into motivation to become a better player and
eventually displace Cesar as QPR’s number one. But I can’t help but feel that
QPR may have benefitted just as much from letting Green know they had the
opportunity to sign Cesar but declined due to their confidence in their
recently signed England international. As a West Ham fan I wish Green all the
best. I just hope that his career is not the latest victim of misplaced
sporting conventional wisdom.
As for ‘A Life Too
Short’, one hopes that its impact will be the most obvious one: deepening
people’s understanding of the illness of depression, as it did my own. But I am
also hopeful that stories of players such as Enke will help demonstrate that
there can be success for those who defy the conventional wisdom. Whilst Enke’s illness and untimely
demise give Reng’s work a greater gravity, his story is compelling even without
it’s ending. Amongst the saddest sub-plots in the book was the way Enke felt
unable to share his experiences more widely during his life. Both Green and
Dempsey could learn something from a fellow professional whose tragic death
denied football an inspiring role model. And not just because he suffered from
depression.
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