Cod Almighty | Diary

Pie 'em in the face

4 January 2016

The term 'window' is a useful metaphor when applied to the time period during which footballers' registrations may transfer between clubs. Windows open. Then they close again. But you can still see through them while they're closed. So while the transfer window is closed, you can't sign Ryan Bennett, for example. But if you're Barry Fry, while you're waiting for it to open, you can knock on the transfer window, waving frantically until you catch Ryan Bennett's attention, then point to him with one hand and hold aloft a vast stack of £50 notes with the other.

Now that the January 2016 transfer window is open, your original/regular Diary expects a flurry of transfer window activity and metaphor extension. Paul Hurst will be standing at the top of a ladder looking cagey while councillor and local builder John Fenty keeps lookout at the bottom. And climbing in through the window could be as many as three "quality players". The quiet manager says there are "a few names I'm interested in", although these may not all be new, as one of them seems to be Conor Henderson. Town's largely unused loan midfielder has been on one of those funny contracts at Crawley which end halfway through the season, so he's now a free agent. And the club's newly superb new official website says Hurst wants to secure Henderson on a "more permanent" basis.

Would Henderson would be a worthwhile longer-term addition? Unfortunately I haven't seen him play, so there's no way I can comment. Instead I'll distract you from my lack of commitment by descending into needless pedantry. 'Permanent' is like 'unique' in that you can't have degrees of it; something either is or is not permanent or unique; so to talk of "more permanent" is unclear. There again, the term 'permanent' is widely understood within the discourse of football to distinguish the acquisition of a player's registration on a 'parent club' basis from that of a loan signing, so I should probably just never have gone down this road in the first place.

Let's do a mini clickbait list post on the theme 'Two things we learned from Saturday's match against Guiseley'. One: while Town weren't good enough, Guiseley are the most cynical bunch of bastards I've seen since we exited the Football League. Two: Town weren't good enough. And while Henderson may or may not be the man to provide more drive and scruff-of-the-neck grabbing through the middle, the left flank seems entirely bereft of vim in the absence of Conor Townsend.

So whither Townsend this open transfer window? Just as Lenell John-Lewis' performances for the Mariners last year could be said to have put him in the Shop window – ahahaha! – eventually earning him a move to the Football League, so the King$ton Communication$ left-back's excellent showing for Town in a recent FA Cup tie has showcased Townsend in the SHROP window, because one of the clubs reported over the weekend to be interested in him is Shrewsbury Town. Ahahaha! Except they're not, after all. Oh.

Yer man Hursts has been widely quoted, however, as rating the Mariners' chances of signing Townsend permanently as something approaching 0.5 per cent. So I guess this is where we discover whether Operation Promotion will ultimately manifest in something tangible on the pitch. The manager's three quality players will need to include firstly one who is capable of providing pace and agitation up the left flank in the presumed absence of Townsend.

Second, somebody needs to be capable of making things happen through the middle, be it Henderson or that gifted young creative midfielder AN Other, currently believed to have been made available for loan by Arsenal. Clay and Disley are lovely in the middle, just as Robertson and Monkhouse are lovely up the left. But when you meet an immovable object like Guiseley, there's currently no unstoppable force on the bench.

Finally, there'll be another striker, won't there? With Bogle continuing to learn his trade and Pittman often unavailable through being broken, reinforcements will be needed up front – and not in the shape of James Alabi, who has gone back to Ipswich, presumably as a prelude to going back out on loan to the Lincoln Institute for Big Units, perhaps when Liam Hearn gets injured again.

That's my take, anyroad. Do we know how it'll play out? Do we heck as like. Town may be looking through an open transfer window, but it's only halfway up a flight of creaking promotion stairs, just above a corridor of uncertainty.