God, just think... even if he could agree a fee with a club at this stage of the window, what player in the world would want to join our club after the Liverpool game?

What guarantee is there you will get any playtime whatsoever?

You can be the Bundesliga's best left-back and sign on a free transfer and get benched for:

• An out-of-form young right back playing on the wrong side of the pitch, who we know wants to leave the club to join Barcelona

• An right winger who wants to leave the club to join the opposition because he wants to play centrally and is being played at right wing back, a position he doesn't want to play, because the manager wants to convince him to stay.

You can be a consistent 20+ goal a season striker in Ligue 1 who is signed for £50m to solve the problem of having strikers who can't score more than 20+ goals a season and get benched for a guy who can barely even get close to scoring double digits.

You can score a hat-trick in the CL and then be dropped to the bench and frozen out because you want to play more games.

You can be a starting CB for a whole season and then offered to Inter on loan.

etc.