Derby County chief executive Stephen Pearce said he was disappointed to lose out on some signings on transfer deadline day as he explained why those transfers did not materialize.
Derby completed just one deal on the final day of the winter window, with Harrison Armstrong coming on loan until the end of the season from Premier League Everton. Middlesbrough’s Dan Barlaser and Anfernee Dijksteel were both targets but stayed put at Middlesbrough while they also made a late attempt to sign West Brom’s John Swift.
But all three players stayed put at their parent clubs, while a move to add a striker also did not occur, as a move for striker Dani Gomez also did not happen as he moved from Levante to Real Zaragoza.
In an interview with Rams TV and asked if he was happy with the work Derby did in the window, Pearce said: “You’re never happy with the work that you’ve done in the window, especially a January window or a January window like this one.
“I’m sure most clubs will say that this January in particular has been a very, very tough one for many, many football clubs. It is the worst time to try to do business, and you try to do as little as possible within that. In terms of what we brought in, we were agile, and the planning paid off.
“We’re still only in the very first season of what we’re trying to do on the sporting intelligence side, but I think you can see that with the quality we brought in, it’s starting to pay off. But are we ever happy? No. Could we have done more? Absolutely.
“Some of the deals that we lost on the last day of the transfer window, I’ll be completely honest, we were disappointed about. But it was out of our hands—some of it. In the January window, you can have things lined up, you can have deals agreed with clubs, with players, with their representatives all ready to go, and it’s like a domino effect.
“It genuinely is. Some of the ones we missed out on haven’t come out of the parent clubs. That could be target number one, target number two, and target number three. It’s very difficult, and those decisions are out of our hands.”
Aston Villa winger Louie Barry had also been on Derby’s agenda, but in what summed up some of the spending that has occurred in the Championship, he moved to Hull City for a £1m loan fee and £25,000-a-week wages.
Pearce said the club will always analyze the financial viability of transfers and added: “Some of the deals were essentially in the final hour. The parent clubs of those players, and some of those were permanent and some were loans, decided that those players were going to stay.
“Again, some were due to injuries sustained within their squads, which meant things changed. In other deals, it was essentially that people decided to go to other football clubs.
“David’s (owner David Clowes) always talked about, and I’ve always mentioned as well, even though we do believe we’ve got that competitive budget, some of the deals, we won’t do something if it doesn’t make financial sense. I think one of the deals that we had lined up, which we’ve been looking at since probably the start of December and having those conversations, another football club were willing to pay for a player that’s not actually featured in the Championship yet.
“It was £1.5m for them to sign for three months to the end of the season. For us, when we talk about that risk versus reward, even though we could have afforded it, we weren’t willing to necessarily take that risk and that financial risk for someone who hadn’t yet played in the championship. You can lose deals based on us making our own decisions internally, but you can also lose deals for things that are out of your hands.”
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