Tony Pulis column: Why I loved Deadline Day’s deal

By the time today’s deadline expires, we will have seen more than £1 billion spent over the 2025-26 summer and winter periods by English clubs alone, most of them in the top flight. It’s an extraordinary amount of money, but football today is big business.

Over its 30 years of management, it has seen many changes to the system, the biggest of which was when windows were introduced in 2002. Before that, you could buy and sell players whenever you wanted throughout the season, up until the deadline at the end of March.

When this change occurred, Football League clubs were still allowed to make loan signings during certain periods after the windows closed. Again, these things can have a big impact.

When Stoke City were battling relegation from the Championship in March 2003, we brought in striker Ade Akinbiyi on loan from Crystal Palace and goalkeeper Mark Crossley from Middlesbrough.

They both made a massive impact, with their character and performances, and we ended up staying up on the final day of the season thanks to a 1-0 win over Reading, with Adi scoring our goal.

A few years later, again when I was at Stoke, we came across a loophole in the window system, regarding players in the Premier League who were left out of the 25-man nominated first-team squad and who were registered to play in the league after that specific window.

These players will be allowed to be loaned a week after the window closes.

John Rudge was with me at Stoke as director of sport, and he was a wily old fox.

As I mentioned about my coaching staff in last week’s article about Michael Carrick, I always preferred to have an experienced coach by my side and there was no one older and wiser than John. I asked him to compile a list of players who could help us.

The 2006-07 season didn’t start very well, and I was criticized by some fans about how quiet the club had been during the summer transfer window – my CEO even doubted my ability to bring in players as well!

The window closed but then the emergency window opened and in September, October and November of that year, we brought in Patrick Berger, Lee Hendry from Aston Villa and Salif Diaw from Liverpool, all on loan and with the parent clubs paying the majority of the players’ wages.

That season, we missed out on a top-six finish in the Championship and a play-off place after drawing with QPR on the final day, but the momentum we built after that continued the following year when the club reached the Premier League for the first time in its history.

If I hadn’t made any of those signings, I don’t think the club would have been able to get promoted to the top flight.