Chris Wilder’s issue is with his club, not Celtic or the transfer window.

The media really does love its ridiculous stories, doesn’t it?

Yesterday, they were making a big fuss over Chris Wilder’s comments at Sheffield United about the transfer deal that took Auston Trusty to Celtic. As far as I know, Trusty isn’t even mentioned in Wilder’s slightly incoherent rant.

Wilder’s complaint is about the transfer window running into the campaign itself. He believes transfer business should be concluded before the season starts. It’s neither an original idea nor one that’s likely to be adopted anytime soon.

That’s not to say there isn’t a certain amount of logic to his point—it does make sense to avoid the nightmarish grind we all endure over the summer months.

So I can see where managers who support a change to this rule are coming from, but the simple fact is there’s no point in complaining about it at the moment. The rules have been this way for 22 years; everyone knows them going in. Nobody is forcing clubs to sell their best players in the final days of a window.

Wilder is really complaining about nothing. If he has an issue with his player being sold, his beef should be with his own board of directors, who presumably sanctioned the deal. I feel sorry for them too, because they’re dealing with a substantial hole in the balance sheet that needs to be filled somehow. It doesn’t seem like Sheffield United had much choice in the matter.

Celtic made an offer that was roughly in the ballpark of what they valued the player at. The decision was made, and the deal got done. It’s happened to us, too—remember the Matt O’Riley deal? But we did our work in advance, had the Engels deal ready to go, and we signed Luke McCowan as an additional backup.

The fact is, Sheffield United should have done their work a little better. The manager should have had targets identified who could step in and fill the shoes of players lost late in the day. There’s nothing complicated about this, although people have tried to make it more complex than it is.

Wilder doesn’t like losing players at the last minute, and most fans don’t like signing them at the last minute either. He’d rather deals were done before the summer—and guess what? So would other managers. Brendan Rodgers would have preferred a timely conclusion to our own transfer business.

I’m not sure why this is such a big deal. If it hadn’t involved a Celtic player, we probably wouldn’t have heard a word about it. As usual, the media is trying to create a story out of nothing. All Wilder has done is express concerns about how the transfer window can leave managers without time to replace players who leave too late. But as I said, he should take that up with his own directors and perhaps let them know that next summer or in January, he won’t sanction the sale of key players after a certain time.

Brendan Rodgers was asked that same question about the O’Riley deal—whether there was a cut-off point beyond which you can’t replace a player and must say no to any offer. Rodgers confirmed that there was. So while there’s some sympathy for Wilder’s case, and while many managers might agree that it would be better if transfer deals were done before the season kicks off, we live in the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be.

If clubs believe in this, they could lobby for a change.

In fact, since the transfer window was set up in the 2002/03 season, managers have raised these kinds of concerns every now and again. But the current system is far less chaotic than it used to be, where you could lose your best players at any point during the season if another club made an offer. That system created chaos throughout the campaign, allowing clubs to unsettle players during the season in the hope of getting them to ask for a transfer. This is one of the reasons why the window was introduced in the first place: to prevent that kind of uncertainty.

Wilder claims these decisions are made by people who don’t understand football, but the rules were actually set by FIFA, which took on board input from clubs and associations. UEFA supported its introduction back in 2002, but here’s the crucial part; they noted that they had no authority to force leagues to adopt it. So, it was actually a decision by the leagues themselves to voluntarily enter into this arrangement.

If Wilder wants to lobby English football to change its transfer deadline rules, I’m sure he would find support, but not enough to ditch the policy.

Because here’s the catch: if English football voluntarily changed the rules to require that all deals be done before the summer ended, there would be no mechanism to stop clubs from abroad—from Turkey or the UAE, for example, where the transfer window remains open right now —from snapping up players after the domestic window closes.

Ibrox is still hoping Tavernier is sold, although they have no time to replace him with anything but a free transfer options.

In the event some associations voted for change they’d be leaving themselves in a perilous place and trying to get all countries to agree on a harmonised transfer window prior to the season starting would be impossible; some associations don’t even have harmonised season start dates, and it would create a confusion right across football and a situation where some leagues would simply prey on others, creating even more uncertainty and chaos.

Like I said, if this story weren’t connected to Celtic, we probably wouldn’t hear a word about it. Wilder has a point, but he’s shouting into the wind. This system has been in place for over 22 years, and it’s not going anywhere. In fact, an entire media ecosystem is built around hyping every aspect of it, and while fans might complain, many also enjoy the drama.

Does it make life hard for managers? Some of them, yes, but those who work well with their clubs and follow a plan—and who don’t allow good players to leave until they have suitable replacements—somehow manage to navigate it just fine.