It comes but twice a year. It leaves grown men hammering the F5 ‘refresh’ button on their computers every 30 seconds like a impatient schoolgirl trying to secure the last Justin Bieber tickets (is he still what the kids are listening to?!)
A day when apparently everybody has a friend who works at the local airport or a girlfriend who works with somebody whose brother’s sister’s uncle’s cousin knows someone close to a Premiership footballer angling for a move. Yes that is right. It is Transfer Deadline Day.
The raison d’être for Sky Sports News and its yellow ticker of joy/doom depending on your team loyalties. We can only assume that for Everton fans the day passes without much notice given their board’s aversion to any type of spending in the transfer market.
Most action is likely to take place in North London where Arsenal look to salvage their season after just 3 games where they have limped from one disaster to the next. Tottenham will finally prise Scott Parker from his West Ham nightmare and back to Premiership football.
Elsewhere Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC slug it out over who got the biggest turkey last year in the Joe Cole and Yossi Benayoun swap. Both look set to be offloaded this transfer window with Cole set for a loan move to Lille (has anyone told him that is in France, not a borough of London?) and Benayoun earmarked potentially for a return to Anfield.
With spending already over £400m this summer and one or two more surprises likely come 11pm this evening, this year’s Premiership season is warming up nicely. Once the window slams shut, we can enjoy four months of football before the bandwagon starts all over again in January.
At least that is what my mate Dave working at Heathrow baggage claim says anyway…
By Conan Jal
Twitter.com/conanjal
