Although extremely rare, there have been some cases in which players have remained at clubs for a very short period of time before being moved on.
They shortest time that players will generally tend to find themselves staying is at least six months – if they are not initially being loaned out for developmental reasons, for example – as they will be given a chance to show what they can do when put into the team.
Admittedly, it would not make too much sense to sign someone of a certain age if they were not going to be a part of the main team, otherwise it is essentially the act of just throwing money away for the sake of it and let’s face it, not all clubs can hope to win the Powerball lottery to try and top up the coffers.
Benik Afobe’s move to Wolves and then his switch to Stoke City just 11 days later certainly appeared to raise eyebrows in 2018, however there is one man who has had a move to a club be even shorter than that.
Robert Jarni was once a Coventry City player in 1998, remember? Nope, nor did we.
The former Croatia international left-back had joined the Sky Blues in a deal for a reported £2.6 million from Real Betis and it would have been a signing that would have got everyone at the club celebrating as much as they did when they won promotion to the Championship last season.
However, less than a week later and Jarni was back on the move and back to Spain.
Naturally, there was a little more to the story than just deciding to up-sticks just a few days. Of course, Real Madrid were (and still are) one of the biggest clubs and turning down a move to Los Blancos would have been extremely difficult to do.
However, as much as the Spaniard’s tried to sign him, Real Betis continued to reject their advances, which then opened the door for Coventry and Gordon Strachan.
Jarni maintains that he joined the Sky Blues in good faith and had wanted to move to the Premier League club, however his family situation was cited as the reason as to why he could not go through with living in England.
For the inconvenience – if you can call it that – Coventry were handed a £1 million on top of what they had paid for the left-back by Real Madrid and swiftly accepted it after it became apparent the Croatian would not be happy in a defence that contained Roland Nilsson, Richard Shaw and Gary Breen.
Things did not go to plan for Jarni when he returned to Spain, though, as he found it difficult to match up with a certain Roberto Carlos for the left-back position and a year later he was on his way to the Segunda Division with Las Palmas before ending his playing career in Greece with Panathinaikos.
Now a manager – with his most recent spell in India for NorthEast United – the time clearly was not right for him to be in the Midlands when he was.
