Zian Flemming opens up on transfer 'battlefield' during Burnley to Ipswich move

Zian Flemming has confirmed his deadline day move to Ipswich Town came close to collapse with a fascinating insight into the stressful final hours of the window.

The striker’s £20m exit from Turf Moor was anticipated for much of the day on Tuesday, but confirmation only arrived right on the 11pm deadline.

It’s understood the move was on and off at several points throughout the day, but an agreement was finally struck late in the day - much to the disappointment of Burnley fans who were devastated to see their talisman depart, especially with no replacement lined up.

Speaking to the press for the first time since making the move to Portman Road, Flemming spoke in depth about how the move went down.

“Waking up in the morning knowing there’s a chance the move is going to happen, I was quite positive about it, let’s say,” he said. “I thought it was going to happen, but there’s no guarantees.

“You travel down to Ipswich to kind of be in the middle - although luckily not myself, that’s what we have agents for. It’s probably fair to say on a week like this, the value of an agent, or a good agent, has been proven because he was in the middle of a battlefield of phone calls for maybe 24 hours, with barely any sleep.

“I was obviously getting the updates every now and then, sometimes a bit more than others. But there were other times where I said: ‘do you know what? Just leave me out of it for a bit because it’s not close to getting done, things were getting delayed and pushed back’.

“We were sat in the hotel and then, because it was quite clear the agreement was far from done yet, I decided to go and have a nap to rest, because I was a little bit knackered from the past few days.

“Towards the end, you could feel it was almost collapsing and then back on. You could feel it was happening and then not happening.

“Then you need all the paperwork to be finalised and then you have to wait until 20 minutes before the deadline for the last signature to come in.

“There was a lot of waiting around, but thankfully it’s not me that had to do the work. I wouldn’t say I was useless, but I’m just waiting. What can I do? I’m just waiting for them to pull the trigger and get a deal done.

“My agent was in the middle, in the battlefield between all parties trying to make sure it didn’t explode, because the tensions were quite high at some point.”

The 28-year-old continued: “It’s emotionally very draining. You’re just tired.

“I had a little moment of reflection with my agent thinking: ‘phew, f***ing hell - I can’t say that, can I? I’ve done it again, sorry - but we’ve done it.

“Sometimes it really looked like it wouldn’t get done, so let’s be very grateful and happy that we got the deal done.

“Imagine sitting here now on the way back to Burnley after all of that. Now at least it’s been worth all the headaches and hard work and phone calls and stress.”

When asked if there was ever a point where he thought the move wouldn’t happen, Flemming added: “There was one moment, yeah.

“Most of the time I was quite chill, to be honest. I knew I was in good hands with my agent. I knew he was busy and he was getting quite stressed trying to pull all the strings and try to keep the move alive, but I was confident in him.

“There was one point, probably around 6pm which isn’t many hours left, when it genuinely felt it was going to fall through because there was still no agreement.

“It was nervous for about half an hour, but I decided to take a helicopter view, take a look at the big picture to try and calm myself down a little bit and then I was probably alright after that.

“Probably naively, I always trusted in a good outcome because it’s probably not always a given that it happens. You see on a lot of deadline days that moves fall through.

“But like I said, luckily I’ve got a great agent who was able to do two deadline days for me, because when I signed for Burnley it was similar.”

While Flemming is delighted to be back in the Premier League, he also seemingly confirmed reports of strong interest from French side Ligue 1.

When it was put to him that it was the Premier League or nothing, the striker said: “Not particularly, to be honest. At the beginning, I tried to keep the options open.

“I’ve also always had a dream to play in the Champions League and I still have that, or at least a big team in Europe in one of the top five leagues would also be great, so I try and keep all options open.

“But the Premier League is still always the Premier League and in the end, you’d like to think you have a lot of choices as a player, but it’s not always like that because there are so many other things going on: restrictions, financial issues and can clubs even sign me?

“There might have been other clubs that would have liked to have signed me, but can they budget to sign me? Or do they already have a striker? Blah blah blah.

“In the end, it’s about what team wants you most and which team can materialise a deal. But when this got close, and I saw Liverpool at home on the schedule, I was happy this was the result, because this is just class.”