Deadline Day

The furore when the continental style transfer window was implemented in England was venomous. It was if the fundamental human rights of a club to make obscene mid-season bids for players had been eroded by a corrupot regime hell bent on preventing freedom of (monetary) expression. The point everybody seemed to miss at the time was the one that sells tickets, newspapers and the adverts for Sky Sports News; Drama.

The ensuing scramble when the magical window opens at the begining of each year is brilliant. Fans are glued to news channells and web sites, no longer having to think of a flimsy excuse to justify ogling Georgie Thompson for inumerable hours per day, but to see if their team have managed to land a late Christmas present to keep them up or to push for those elusive European places. Like the free market ethos that has made football's wealth possible the transfer period has the same air of aspiration-anything is possible. It could be your club that gets hold of the highly sought after British talent before anyone else (Fabian Delph anyone?), you could make an audacious bid for one of the worlds greatest players (Kaka-scourge of the Middle East) or maybe a messianic figure will make an uverdue return home (Pascal Chimbonda). Whatever happens the whole spectacle is pervaded by an air of drama although in reality the best most clubs can hope for is a Slovakian utility man coming in on loan. Even worse than that the time allows "selling" clubs to be stripped of those bought in with acumen on a small budget that have actually turned out to be quite good. Wigan for example have lost Wilson Palacios to Spurs and although they have made a healthy return I'm sure most fans would rather see his talents used to keep them up rather than help a struggling rival. Emile Heskeys move may be a greater blow as his goals and all round lumbering presence arent easily found especially with the paltry six million they received for the big mans services. The situation looks as though its getting grimmer up North as well as Antonio Valencia and wonder-buy Amir Zaki look as though they will be heading to pastures new at the end of the season, after gracing Rugby League FC with their presence for the remainder of the year. At least they can find solace in Charles N'zogbia's iminent move from Newcastle for the small price of giving the Toon Ryan Taylor, a swap deal which has echoes of when I was scammed out of my best pokemon card for three lollipops and an IOU at the age of ten. Steve Bruce has got an eye for a transfer but it must be easier negotiating with a drunk, tourettes sufferer in Joe Kinnear.

Although the machinations of agents and players with increased wages to court dominate most of the month deadline day is where the real excitement occurs. The scrambling, the sightings of Zinedine Zidane being shown around Stoke by Tony Pullis, the amount of coverage given to Norwich bringing in a player on loan from Benfica; it's incredible. This year is no excpetion as it looks like Arsenal will lose their transfer virginity by bringing in Andrei Ar$havin, who like a loose woman drunk on cheap alcho-pops has courted everyone and when no-one was really interested for the amount it was going to cost them a bunch of young lads with a lot to learn. Perhaps more interesting is the Robbie Keane saga who, after arriving with much hyperbole attached at Liverpool, failed to create the greatest striking partnership in the world with El Nino and instead has warmed the bench whilst Rafa Benitez desperatley tried to pretend he wasn't there. Now it seems he will return to Tottenham, bowed and I'd imagine a little gutted, like a character from a bad Catherine Cookson novel who has realised her friends in the big city werent as nice as they first seemed and her comfortable little hometown was nothing to be ashamed of.

Long may the transfer window continue, long may players reject vast sums of money to play for infinitley better clubs and long may an unpheasably large amount of column inches being allocated to Pompey's loan activities