The integration problem nobody prices in
Even when the fee is defensible, a January signing arrives without a preseason. He has typically missed months of tactical work with his new teammates, is often replacing a fit and familiar player mid-campaign, and has to adapt to a new league, city and dressing room while matches keep coming every three or four days. Torres's and Carroll's early struggles at their new clubs were widely attributed at the time to exactly this, players dropped into a system and a set of relationships they had not had a single preseason to build.
