Miguel Delaney: Inside Football – get full insider…

Miguel Delaney: Inside Football – get full insider access for just £1

Miguel Delaney's Inside Football newsletter lands in your inbox every Monday and Friday - (The Independent)

The January transfer window creates the impression that football reveals itself in real time. Rumours break by the hour, deals are framed as decisive, and every signing is instantly judged as a success or failure.

But the truth is more complicated. And far more interesting.

What the transfer window really exposes is not just recruitment strategy, but power – who drives decisions, who resists them, and who ultimately lives with the consequences once the window shuts. The most revealing stories are rarely the ones announced on deadline day. They tend to surface later, when internal compromises become clear and pressure begins to bite.

During this crucial point of the Premier League season, my Inside Football newsletter offers exclusive reporting from inside clubs, drawing on conversations with executives, coaches and figures close to the deals shaping the second half of the competition.

I look beyond the surface of transfers to examine why certain targets were pursued, where disagreements emerged, and what January decisions say about a club’s hierarchy.

Inside Football lands every Monday and Friday. While Monday usually provides a debrief of the weekend’s action, the full Friday edition is reserved for members only and features deeper reporting from inside the game, with access to insider knowledge you simply can’t get elsewhere.

For a limited time during the transfer window, readers can unlock full access to Inside Football at the special price of £1 for three months.

The offer, valid until midnight on 8 February, covers the remainder of the window and the period after it closes, when the consequences of January decisions begin to play out.