Transfer window opens a fresh opportunity for Saido Berahino following Tottenham mess

Saido Berahino laughs prior to the start of a match between Stoke City and Everton Bet365 Stadium on February 1, 2017, in Stoke on Trent, England. Gareth Copley / Getty Images

The sound of the winter transfer window slamming shut always leaves behind a tinge of sadness.

On the one hand every February 1 offers a sense of finality: each club has their squad that they must utilise best they can until June in search of silverware or survival. There is no point to a manager at a club like Middlesbrough moaning about a £6 million signing from Chelsea’s reserves he didn’t even want in the first place. Time to roll your sleeves up, Aitor, and get on with it.

It also offers a break from the lunacy that only a transfer window can offer. A one-month period when dark, supernatural market forces somehow deem a striker who cost Celtic £500,000 in June 2016 can now value him at £30 million — a 5,900 per cent increase — seven months and nine Scottish Premier League goals later.

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This window saw West Ham United spectacularly climb down over Dimitri Payet and allow their best player to return to Marseille after initially vowing to hold him to his rather handsome £125,000 a week contract he was happy to sign 12 months ago.

The multibillion Premier League club were lauded for taking their multimillionaire Premier League footballer to task over his refusal to play against Crystal Palace and go on strike. “No player is bigger than the club,” co-chairman David Sullivan said. A victory for the little guy if ever there was one.

But come January 30 the Frenchman had got his wish after Sullivan and his board decided that cashing in on an unhappy player to the tune of £25m — not to mention the millions saved on wages — was preferable than sticking to their guns and “making an example” of Payet.

Arguably the most protracted transfer didn’t even start in this window, or even end with the club who initiated it.

When Tottenham Hotspur began pursuing Saido Berahino in the summer of 2015, the West Bromwich Albion striker was one of the hottest young properties in English football following a 20-goal campaign in 2014/15.

The North London club’s approach to both destabilise the player and get him on the cheap upset Berahino’s employers. Several bids were turned down for the Burundi-born goal getter before he snapped and vowed never to play under then chairman Jeremy Peace again.

There was a touch of irony about it all. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is the first to cry foul when other clubs make moves on his best players — Manchester United’s signing of Michael Carrick and Dimitar Berbatov, Real Madrid’s of Luka Modric and Gareth Bale spring to mind — but he was quick to portray his club as the innocent party in the Berahino mess.

Fast-forward 18 months and Berahino is no longer at West Brom, but instead of donning the lillywhite of Tottenham he will instead wear the red and white stripes of Stoke City.

No disrespect to Mark Hughes’s club, but the saga only goes to highlight the murky world of transfer windows: a player who should have been helping Spurs in pursuit of a top-four finish will instead try to help Stoke finish in the top half having missed a chunk of his career following a bitter fallout with West Brom, who only received £12m for a player Spurs offered to buy for £18m.

The window may be shut, but the chance to open his Stoke goals account will give Berahino the chance to heal.

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