Going It A-Loan

Watching the Arsenal v Sunderland game yesterday I was reflecting on what is perhaps one of the biggest changes in football over the last few years.

It came when I realised that Sunderland’s new player Nicklas Bendtner wasn’t on the pitch because he was unable to play against his “parent club.” The Danish forward went to The Black Cats on deadline day, but he only went on the type of temporary transfer that is becoming increasingly common these days.

Everywhere you look there is a player on a Season Long Loan, or an Emergency Loan, or a Youth Loan, a Loan “with a view to a permanent move,” or some other type of contract. There must be players that forget what team that they actually play for!

Take, for example, Ibrahima Sonko. He was signed by Stoke in 2008 for £2m but quickly fell out of favour. He spent the 2009/10 season on loan at Hull – who tried to send him back to Stoke after things went sour there, but Stoke refused to take him back. The 2010/11 campaign was no happier for the Senegal international, he was shipped out to Portsmouth – guess what – on a loan deal, but they had so many loan players that he fell foul of the maximum allowed in a match day squad (five) that often he was out of the side.

At the end of the last season he was released by Stoke and was signed by Ipswich, where his is rebuilding his career – ironically enough alongside Danny Collins, who is on loan to the Tractor Boys from The Potters. But he had effectively been in limbo for two years – when in the old days he would have moved on a permanent deal and he could have planned for his future.

There is only one side in the Championship at the moment without a loan player – Coventry City – and it’s easy to see why it is an attractive option for teams at that level from a business point of view. You are signing a proven quality player – or an ambitious youngster – and if the gamble doesn’t pay off then you can send him back without it having cost you too much – but it is the view of Soccerbusiness that it is getting a touch out of hand.

We are not far from the stage – and anyone who has played 5 a side football will recognise this – where a player might not know the name of his team mates! Ok that might be extreme, but there are players on loan from Premier League clubs who have made over 150 appearances in the football league and never represented the actual club they are contracted too.

Much of the fault lies with the big Premier League Clubs. They have either accrued so many players that they can’t fit them all into their 25 man squads – witness Craig Bellamy being “on loan” at Liverpool. Or their youngsters can’t get a game because their teams are choc full of internationals.

Of course youngsters have benefitted from loan spells since the system began. Former Arsenal and England player Steve Bould won leagues and cups, but always said that none of that would have happened if he hadn’t gone to Torquay in the early 80s for a couple of months, and that must surely continue to happen. But the situation as it is now isn’t helping anyone, not the clubs – who get no long term stability with players changing every month in some cases – not the fans and above all not the players themselves.