Chief Executive goes into detail about the transfers that did happen, the players who left the Club and the deals that didn’t happen.
Gauthier Ganaye, Barnsley Football Club Chief Executive spoke exclusively to iFollow Barnsley about the January transfer window. Ganaye, who has now had two transfer windows which has seen 23 players arrive at Oakwell sat down to discuss all activity during January.
Ganaye began by giving a summary overall of the window: “I think it has been a very busy period for us. Our main objective was to come out of this window with a stronger starting XI and I think we have managed to do that quite well. We also wanted to make sure we kept our best players and we have managed to do that as well. This window was very different from the last transfer window as in the summer it was about rebuilding the whole squad, this window was about strengthening.”
Gauthier acknowledges that the fans wanted players to come in earlier in the window, so addressed the point of why January is a difficult time to bring players in early, which is representative of all the teams across all league’s, not just the Reds.
“We have been one of the most active Club’s in the Championship.” He stated. “The January window is very different to the summer one because most of the business is done in the last few days, or on the last day as you have seen for us. That’s mainly because people don’t want to let players out until they get players in, so it’s a big circle. The FA Cup doesn’t help as well because the Premier League sides want to keep their young players to try them in that competition, that’s why McBurnie and Mahoney couldn’t be done earlier. Every Club is pretty much in the same situation.”
The window was not just one where players came in at Oakwell however, with Club captain Angus MacDonald moving on to join Hull City which Ganaye spoke about full in full.
“Angus was struggling a bit to get into the team, due to injuries, suspensions and a medical problem. When you have centre backs performing really well like Liam Lindsay and Ethan Pinnock who have even performed above our expectations, Matty Pearson has done a good job there when he’s played and Adam Jackson as well before he was injured. From a business perspective we couldn’t afford to have a player of the calibre of Angus out of the team so we needed to find a solution for that, I think we have done a good bit of business, everyone at the Club wishes all the very best to Angus for the future.”
Cameron McGeehan, Jared Bird, Dylan Mottley-Henry, Jacob Brown and Jack Walton all left the Club too, but they are due to return in the summer as they have been granted loan deals in search of first team football.
“A main objective in this window was also to use loans out not just loans in. All the players who went out wouldn’t have got as much first team football if they had stayed at Barnsley and again we needed these players to play so we’re happy with that. I know some people thought we should have kept Cameron [McGeehan] or Jared [Bird] a little bit longer but our objective was for them to get as much football as possible so we wanted to do this very early in the window.”
To view the full interview where the Reds’ Chief Executive goes into greater detail about every move over the window involving Barnsley Football Club, go to iFollow Barnsley.
