Let’s scrap the January transfer window

Norwich City are a likeable club, and currently run by a pleasant-seeming bloke called Allan Russell. He used to be the club’s ‘setpiece coach’, whose claim to fame was that he was working with the England squad in 2018 when they scored against the mighty Panama. Good for him, of course, but has football become too dependent on the ever-expanding phalanx of managerial officials now filling up the bench at every game under the sun? Is the beautiful game losing sight of what really matters? After all, this might be a world where a championship side can have a setpiece coach, but it is also a world where Pele had to flog his medals to get by.

Amid the panoply of Pele panegyrics, one image stands out: the mesmerising picture of Pele and Bobby Moore swapping shirts after England had lost 1-0 to Brazil at Guadalajara in the 1970 Mexico World Cup.