Transfers: when is a deal not a deal? – QPR’s Harry Redknapp and Crystal Palace’s Ian Holloway

This section of the close season is a race to the finish, but even though Ian Holloway and Harry Redknapp aren’t exactly tortoises, these two managers have been taught a forgotten lesson this week, if you’ve got transfer targets, get the deal completed quickly.

Redknapp has openly said QPR have been missing out and Holloway has described his target hunting this week as “one of the worst weeks of his life”. Gary Hooper’s transfer to Norwich City is where Redknapp failed. Having agreed a fee with Celtic for the striker, the club was too slow in sorting personal terms; giving Norwich the chance to complete the deal for themselves. He described missing out on Hooper as a ‘huge setback’ and voiced his unhappiness at the lack of speed with which the club tried to close the deal.

Ian Holloway too was disappointed by the way deals for his club have collapsed. His targets, supposedly Dan Gosling and Carlton Cole, have not come to be completed either. With three weeks left and very little in the way of transfers to show for Crystal Palace, Holloway has concluded that due to coming in late to the market and again the speed of his club to complete his deals, he also has come up short.

Redknapp and Holloway will still recruit players before the window closes, but hopefully they have learnt that slow and steady doesn’t always win the race.