“Can my dog live in the apartment?” Ben Osborn asks Stockport’s first-team scouting operations manager, Dale Hargan. The Derby midfielder is about to undergo a medical before joining the League One side on a season-long loan and there are questions that need to be answered.
It is deadline day and Osborn has left his East Midlands home for the prospect of more regular playing time. He will be one of three arrivals at Edgeley Park before the window closes, the end of half a year of planning for Stockport. It looks like everything has gone smoothly when Osborn eventually signs the relevant paperwork at 6pm in the boardroom at the club’s training ground clad in official merchandise. Relief can be seen on the faces of the recruitment team. Their hard work has paid off.
Walking through the training ground door at 10am, the message is loud and clear: “It is manic already.” Everton’s Tyler Onyango and Rochdale’s Corey Edwards have joined on loan. The announcements will come later, but unknowns are the enemy. Stockport have a plan but a bid for one of their key assets will change the course of the day without notice.
In the de facto transfer boiler room, located on the first floor, phones do not stop pinging. The head of recruitment, Jonathan Smith, is filtering names from agents and clubs. “It wouldn’t be unusual to have about 150 players offered in a day,” says Smith. “Has he got a British passport?” Smith asks one caller. “I like him but we don’t need someone in that position,” is another response as he runs through candidates. Stockport’s chief executive, Simon Wilson, who was previously the club’s director of football, steps in for updates. There is no fax machine but the coffee machine keeps whirring to power the day, which mercifully finishes four hours earlier than in previous years.
Meanwhile, the head of emerging talent, Vinil Joseph, sits in the corner trawling through TransferRoom, a marketplace for players. Clubs list the positions they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay. Behind Joseph is a list of every League One and Two club, detailing business they might want to do. “He could be too lightweight for League One,” someone says. The brief moments of peace are spent analysing the latest deals announced on Sky Sports News.
This is the swan kicking its legs. Osborn is the focus, a central midfielder who can also operate as a left-wing back, solving two problems in one. A deadline of 10am is given to Derby to accept Stockport’s offer to cover a certain percentage of his wages. The WhatsApp message arrives 20 minutes later and the wheels are in motion, literally as Osborn drives almost two hours to the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance [MIHP]. Hargan is dispatched to join him, putting on his player liaison hat.
Normally three to six months of research and planning goes into each signing Stockport make, but Osborn was a curveball that piqued interest. He was not on the club’s radar but they were made aware that he would fall into budget and was open to dropping down a division. These opportunities do not come along often and after doing their due diligence by reviewing the data that showed Osborn relentless running would fit well into manager Dave Challinor’s style, he was put at the top of the list. Other deals were more straightforward, but this was the one everyone wanted.
The state-of-the-art MIHP facility in east Manchester attracts clubs from across the north looking for somewhere to carry out medicals. Seven set up camp there on deadline day, including Salford City and Manchester City. Stockport made their booking a few days in advance in anticipation of the rush. And they needed to given the site is alive with activity as the deadline approaches.
Stockport’s head of medical, Jake Austin, and an independent doctor oversee the early stages of Osborn’s medical, Derby having sent over the 31-year-old’s records and with Austin having held conversations with his equivalent there. Osborn is asked for his family medical history before going through his injuries season-by-season. He knows his body better than anyone but Stockport cannot take chances and will focus their testing in the limited time available. Modern medicals can take up to six hours but that is not practical with the clock ticking.
Back at the club’s Carrington base, the logistics of plans B, C and D are debated if anything untoward is found in Osborn’s medical. An offer is placed for a Premier League youngster and kept on the back-burner in case things change dramatically, while a player in the Championship is also sounded out. Stockport are known for their smart and methodical recruitment, instigated by Wilson, and want to improve on last season’s third-place finish. This summer they sold Isaac Olaofe to Charlton for 10 times what they paid for the striker two years ago, and have replaced him with Malik Mothersille from Peterborough, anticipating their new signing has a high ceiling and potentially a greater fee at the end of it.
Smith is proud of the presentation that helped lure Stoke’s Nathan Lowe, a player wanted by almost every League One club, and Finland international Arttu Hoskonen, among others. Stockport have plenty of selling points, from their modern training ground to the stability of having had the same manager for almost four years, pitching themselves as English football’s most ambitious project outside the top two divisions. Osborn is impressed by the players’ room and is given a serviced apartment – one his dog can call home – in central Manchester for the length of his loan. Stockport had the answers before the questions were asked, therefore making a potentially tricky process altogether smooth. “It’s that human side, putting yourself in their shoes,” says Smith. “It’s a big change moving to a football club. It’s all those bits around it that I’d like to think we do really well.”
At 2pm, Challinor joins Wilson, Smith and head of football operations, Alex Cowdy, in a meeting to run through how deals are progressing as well as debate other available options. A defender of interest earlier in the window is now available for nothing having previously been quoted at £750,000. Although tempting, the move is ruled out. “Calm heads are absolutely needed, because you’ve had some big decisions to make,” says Smith. “Preparation is integral; aligning everybody from the manager, director of football, chief executive … making sure we’re ready to go should something not go as well as what we wanted to happen.”
Three players depart: Danny Andrewat the end of a one-month contract, while Jid Okeke and Jay Mingi head to League Two Walsall and Crewe respectively. Conversations take place regarding the exit of other fringe players but no concrete interest in show in them, allowing the collective focus to squarely be put on Osborn.
Stockport’s captain, Ollie Norwood, was at Sheffield United with Osborn for five seasons and the former teammates spoke on the phone for 40 minutes, with the former selling the club to the latter. Osborn had numerous offers, including from clubs in the Championship, but the words of Norwood and Challinor, who also spoke to the player on Sunday, were enough to convince him to make what is the first loan move of his career.
Challinor comes down to meet Osborn for the first time and the manager’s smile shows how happy he is to be getting his man. Meanwhile, Wilson and Austin have a lengthy conversation to run through the results of the medical and where further to examine Osborn. Training kit is found and the sports scientists get to work on him. Osborn is forced to test his hamstrings and quads under supervision. “You always get nervous,” Smith says of medicals. “It’s part of the process.”
Osborn’s tests are done and, soon, head of performance, Sam Holt, is heading up to club offices to gives the thumbs up to Wilson, Smith and Challinor. Plans B to G are disregarded at 5.30pm and Osborn meets everyone in a surprisingly calm manner given the whirlwind day he has endured. He woke a Derby resident but will go to bed in Manchester, calling Edgeley Park his second home despite having never been to the ground before.
Osborn and his agent, James Tunnicliffe, wander off to run through the necessary paperwork and ensure everything is above board. Cowdy is beckoned into the boardroom for the signing of the deal and everything is done by 6pm, with an hour to spare. Osborn is then told which group chats to join and Instagram accounts to follow. Hands are shaken and everyone is pleased with the outcome. Stockport have a player with Premier League experienceand he has the chance to play.
On days like this it can feel like transfer activity takes place in the space of 24 hours but the truth is it takes months of work to put deals together. “We’ve already peeked into January,” reveals Smith. “We know when contracts are expiring. We have some targets that we like that we couldn’t get done this summer but perhaps as we move towards January, we can keep an eye on new players. We’ll always track new ones, too. It’s not like we’ll close the book on everything else.”
The media department has been waiting in the wings, plotting how to unveil Osborn. Contact with previous clubs has been made to source footage and they debate what music would suit the reveal video. Norwood has provided the voiceover to explain what Stockport are getting and there are promotional photos with Osborn in the home, away and third shirts with “18 FIORINI” on the back because they are the right size, an indication that not all eventualities can be planned for at short notice. Nonetheless, it has been a relatively calm and well-ordered transfer window for Stockport. And while it may now have closed, the swan keeps kicking.
