In just under six days time, the transfer window closes, leaving us all debating the merits of the players our clubs have deemed appropriate to pass through their entry/exit doors.
Thursday evening, Jim White will enter the building. An occurance celebrated with bells, whistles and fanfares over at Sky Sports News, and most likely the famous yellow 'Breaking News' banner. We'll then be subjected to a few hours of Jim getting more excited, shouting more loudly, and turning more red faced as the whole occasion builds to a crescendo and overwhelms him.
The Redknapp tracker will need to stick UB3 5AQ into his sat-nav to keep on top of 'Arry and his door-window leaning soundbites. We know the drill, and QPR fans had better be getting used to it as well; 'triffic player', 'don't think we'll do a lot of business', 'the chairman's trying hard' etc.
No doubt someone else will be stood outside a pitch black Etihad stadium, with nobody to talk to, whilst another reporter is at the Britannia getting mobbed by Stoke fans getting excited at the prospect of another distinctly average player arriving (Jenas anyone?)
There will be nobody near Villa Park on Thursday night. None of the Sky boys are brave enough, for fear of being relegated to the Football League Show along with Villa.
Levy's brinksmanship will surely come into play at some point. Surely something will happen, it can't have been Redknapp creating the deadline day nervousness for Spurs fans. No, Harry was merely riding the media wave created by the way we do our business.
Bryan will be there too, with his totaliser. His hands furiously swiping back and forth, showing us who might be going where, what deals have been done and what deals are definitely off. You watch excitedly for his hand to move towards your club's badge and reveal a tasy new signing, only for the 'In' column to be empty, and all they have to report is that Bentley might be going somewhere.
We'll be fed breaking news that's actually fours or five hours old, but nothing has happened for ages. They'll show us videos of someone who may or may not be a footballer with someone who may or may not be an agent arriving at a club/training ground/hospital to sort a deal.
Twitter will explode on Thursday, with all manner of rumours. There will be the odd genuine bit of truth, but the majority will be guesswork and windup. Suddenly most of the population seems to start working as a cab driver, or at an airport, or private hospital receptions where they can lay claim to having seen Messi arriving to complete his move to Sunderland. If only there was a way of filtering out this type of bullshit, aside from not looking at twitter for a week.
I'm not sure there will be a lot of business done before the window slams shut.
Sky's totaliser is currently reporting a spend of £58m this window, so it looks certain it'll beat last year, but whether enough business will be done to see it hit to £100m mark is yet to be seen. I suppose it depends on how many more Frenchmen Pardew can entice to the North-east, or how much of Fernandes' money Redknapp can prise out of his wallet.
I may be scornful and moaning, but I do love transfer deadline day, and will (tv access permitting) be watching it from the minute I get home from work until an hour of so after the deadline (you never know what late deals you might miss – they get announced late – paperwork etc.). I have in the past taken the day/afternoon off work to enjoy the day.
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