The Out-of-Contracters

The hidden gems we're watching this January as their contracts tick towards zero.

Fabrizio Romano is defrosting, which can only mean one thing: a transfer window is approaching.

While I’m not looking forward to him rearranging the same three sentences eight times and posing each as a ‘new update’ on another over-covered saga, I am looking forward to the deals that will get done – particularly as January is perhaps the most logical jumping off points for players from the calendar year leagues, like Scandinavia, South America and Japan, some of my faves.

That said, the January transfer window is usually one that is difficult to get things done in, as disheveled managers scream into the abyss when faced with the relentlessly-chipper Gary Cotterill asking if they’re ‘looking to add anybody’ for the 26th time in a single press conference. Many clubs will resort to the classic “market opportunity” – the player that wasn’t on the agenda initially but is increasingly enticing amid rising tensions and overwhelming FOMO – while others, the smarter ones, your Brightons and Bundesliga-ers, will lay the foundations for their summer business.

A unique facet to the January transfer window is the prospect of clubs being officially allowed to approach players who are out of contract the following summer. Clubs can get talking to players and their representatives and deals can even be agreed, as you’ve no doubt done countless times on Football Manager. That said, it’s not as cut-and-dry as it is on your FM save, and let’s not act as if those approaches haven’t already been made informally via various intermediaries and agents in the months prior, but go with it just for the sake of this piece.

Scene set, who are the players that can be approached this coming January to sign on a pre-contract agreement for the summer? Are there any gems to be secured and bargains to be bagged? Let’s have a look.

---

Before we begin, the caveat: I’m going off Transfermarkt data, which is bloody great and broadly fantastic (and entirely free) but can be off in some of its detail at times. Don’t take it as gospel, even if it pretty much is.

Furthermore, these are dynamic situations – just because they haven’t extended their contract come February, it doesn’t mean they won’t before it expires in the summer. Clubs will be trying their best to keep many of the names in this piece, and some of them will manage to do so.

The Big Boys

While I’m reluctant to write about anyone that you’ve probably never heard of, I have to mention some of the more obvious Out of Contracters.

Where better to start than with Trent Alexander-Arnold? An all-time Premier League great, a right-back that happens to be a generational passer on course to becoming a club legend, Liverpool are obviously trying to keep him – but that depends on what the re-appointed Michael Edwards and his data-led decision-making is willing to offer him. Real Madrid will offer him year-round sun, guaranteed titles, a fat pay packet with a chunky sign-on fee, and Jude Bellingham.

Joshua Kimmich, Leroy Sané and Alphonso Davies are all coming into the final six months of their contracts at FC Bayern München with no likely resolution obvious nor in sight. All three will have the pick of some elite clubs were they to run down their contracts.

In northern France, Jonathan David and Angel Gomes’ LOSC Lille contracts expire in June. David has been stuck in a limbo in Ligue 1 ever since moving there from Belgium, scoring 101 goals and counting in a touch over 200 appearances but not convincing enough for a bigger fish to take the bait. Little Angel Gomes, meanwhile, has found solace in a deep midfield role and worked his way to becoming an England international. It’s been a nice story.

Circling back to full-backs, Tyrick Mitchell, Kyle Walker-Peters, Ola Aina and Kenny Tete’s contract situations are up in the air. They’ve made well almost 400 Premier League appearances between them and would represent rock-solid value for their current clubs’ rivals. Can I interest you in a Kieran Tierney?

Broaden the search criteria to the plus-30s and the likes of Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne, Virgil van Dijk, Heung-min Son and İlkay Gündoğan flash up. Some will stay, others will go.

The list goes on and on. But forget about them, they’re old and boring. Who are the hidden gems that could be available at cut-price rates this January or on freebies next summer? Read on below.

Take the biscuit

No ‘free transfer’ is ever truly ‘free’ – if anything, the figures needed to sign out-of-contract players are inflated by the fact that there isn’t a transfer fee to pay – but still, you can get some properly good deals that can look fantastic in hindsight. Tom Bischof would be one of them.

The 19-year-old is having a breakthrough season at TSG Hoffenheim, a club that has gone through some significant changes behind the scenes in recent months, after taking some time to burst into the first team. He’s been one of the outstanding performers in the Bundesliga so far this campaign, catching the eye in a do-it-all midfield role that we (myself and the dearly departed Stephen) first saw him in for Germany at a UEFA U-17 EURO of two years past.

Back then, Pedri was the comparison I made. I don’t particularly like comparisons, as Tom will attest to, but there are similarities to the ways both facilitate and instigate attacking sequences as playmakers, as well as how they move in general. The German is more skittishly aggresive and less precise than the Spaniard, but said Spaniard is on a level of his own.

Unsurprisingly, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig and Bayern München have already been credibly linked to him. They’re the usual suspects when a highly-rated German talent is coming up to market. All three were in the popular sweepstakes for Assan Ouédraogo last summer, which was won by Leipzig.

What should be paramount for Bischof is that he plays, and that makes Eintracht my preferred destination for him (as it is with many young prospects) if indeed he does move. He’s only just broken into first-team football at Hoffenheim this season so regressing to a bit-part, in-out role makes very little sense.

Don’t discount him staying at Hoffenheim, either. Their new leadership have inherited this lingering contract situation and it’s the first big test of their tenureship. Losing a talent as valuable as Bischof for free isn’t a good start.

Strikers from the second tiers

Staying in Germany, Tim Lemperle is a really interesting one. Köln’s relegation and subsequent financial troubles (meaning they couldn’t sign nor afford to sell anyone) have helped him cement himself as the starting striker in a multi-pronged attack that’s dominating the 2. Bundesliga.