HAVE you ever slammed a window? Seriously. Think about it, think long and hard. The only people who can and have slammed windows are:

• People who live in houses with timber windows. They can slam a window after they have been painted or before they have been painted and have swollen a bit in the rain.
• Women (it’s always women) in a 1930s black and white street scene, either throwing waste water out of a first floor window or shouting abuse at some kind of Andy Capp lookalike as he slinks off to the alehouse. They are then allowed to slam the window closed. For the sake of clarity, that is also a timber window — sliding sash if you must know.

Everyone else just closes the window, probably because they are a little bit scared of smashing the glass in it and also because it is quite tricky to slam a window, especially a plastic one. You have to do the old slam and turn of the handle, which takes pretty good timing and a fair bit of thought. A door, that’s a piece of piss in the main. Just push the prick.

If this is the case, and it very much is, why does everyone bang on about the transfer window SLAMMING SHUT?

I’d have loads more time for the whole thing if on Sky, at 11 bells on August 31, big Jim White and his soft yellow head just announced in his really excited, one pitch voice “and that is it, the transfer window has softly closed, the lockable handle has been turned and the Espagnolette locking mechanism has clicked into place”.

If I’m honest I don’t understand the whole thing. Everything about the transfer window makes no sense to me. I don’t like the name for a start, it’s shit. I can come up with two better ones right now, watch:

• The Transfer Period
• Transfer Time

See? There must be something else to the name though, eh? You would think so wouldn’t you? Well get on this then from dreamingthedream.com — a dream anslysis website with a strong erectile dysfunction advertisement game (I think Pele owns it):

“To see windows in your dreams, is an augury of fateful culmination to bright hopes. You will see your fairest wish go down in despair. Fruitless endeavours will be your portion. To see closed windows is a representative of desertion.”

I’m not much of a dream analyst but they seem to have a bit of a point here don’t they? Imagine being a bluenose and reading that this morning and then thinking of poor Bill sat on the runway in the private jet (Ken Barlow’s) pressing redial like a man possessed. Anyone know the Latin for “Fruitless Endeavours will be your portion” to put on their badge or on the Kings Dock, or Kirkby, or Walton Hall Park?

One of the major issues with the concept of a transfer window is the effect it has on the market in general.

It leads to the over inflation of an already ludicrous transfer valuation system because the very concept of a ticking clock induces panic, and people who are panicking do silly things.

We’ve all seen Countdown — intelligent people when faced with a clock ticking in the background turn into dumbos:

“So then, what have you got”

“Four letters – Spam.”

“It’s the numbers round. Your numbers are 10, 5, 0, 0, 1, 0 and 0 — your target is 16.”

*De de de de de de de de* (that’s the end of the music by the way).

“What have you got?”

“15.”

Before I looked it up, I didn’t really have a clue as to why the transfer window was in place.

Some windows yesterday

I thought it was some kind of Sky and Premier League invention to dramatise football a little bit more.

So I was mildly surprised to discover (I say discover like I am the Christopher Columbus of the modern day — I Googled it for fuck’s sake) that it was implemented as a compromise agreement with the European Commission, which was threatening European leagues and governing bodies with the enforcement of normal working law within football — i.e. that a player could just hand his notice in, go on the ale for four weeks on his dinner break and then join whoever he wanted for no fee and, if he didn’t fancy it, could just do it again and apply for a job in the Giro, or Littlewoods, leaving his club scratching around for a replacement and missing a centre forward for a couple of weeks while they got their act together.

It would take someone in HR a couple of weeks to get the job advertisement in the paper, a week to shortlist and then interview and then another four weeks’ notice before the successful candidate’s first day.

By that time you have had to get some scruff of a temp in who is slightly unhinged and the manager has probably ended up picking himself up front and paying the temp to sit in his car.

If that is the alternative, it probably isn’t that bad.

In all seriousness, I think the stick Liverpool are getting for their approach in this summer’s ‘Transfer Time’ is mental.

For the first time in years we appear to have had a strong — and rather sensible — transfer strategy of only recruiting players that the manager actually wants to sign and only selling players that the manager wants to sell.

I’m struggling to see the pitfalls in that really.

Yes, people have got concerns about the lack of an alternative left back and the lack of a controlling centre midfielder, but do you really think that the manager hasn’t had a bit of a think about it also?

I would imagine — hear me out because this might be a bit left-field for some — that Klopp and co have looked through their shortlist of preferred targets, tried to make one or two of them happen, couldn’t for whatever reason and decided to make do with what we have got instead of buying someone else for the sake of it.

We have aggressively pursued the players we did want and completed deals early enough to allow the new signings to get a good pre-season in them with the squad. Any signs of a deal dragging on or targets using the club’s interest to flush out other parties and we have moved on, pulled out of deals and put our interest on hold to be continued at a later date.

What would people rather have? That we flapped about like Arsenal? Flitting from name to name, dallying over the market rate, ruling players out and then ruling them back in to panic buy a few days before deadline day with them having missed three games?

Or titted about like Tottenham or Everton? Pretending to not want someone only then to have to panic like fuck and either miss out on them with no viable alternative or time to do anything other than fume a bit and try get a refund on your private jet or have to integrate a player into your way of playing with hardly any training time?

Shouldn’t we give the Reds some credit where it is due? Or are we better off calling everyone a shithouse Blairite, FSG sympathiser for not buying anyone — literally anyone — on the last day of the market just so we could watch Sky Sports News and pretend to be caught up in the hyperbolic nonsense of grown men stood in the dark talking about possibilities and sightings and whether or not the lights are on in an office?

We would be wise to remember the wise words of Pele’s semi-on dream site before January 1 comes around. Anyone for a portion of fruitless endeavours? Yes? Go to County Road then — fill your boots.

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