Close That Bloody Window

There are some lovely windows in the world. The one at York Minster takes a bit of beating. And our neighbours' new French windows - their fenetres as I like to call them - are right canny and you can say what you like about UVPC but it's bloody practical and doesn't rattle like comedy teeth in the slightest breeze. Windows can be unattractive and functional, as Bill Gates would testify.

Then there's that other somewhat unattractive opening: not Miley's gob, no. I mean the transfer window. The simple imposition of a period in time when players can be bought and sold has turned from a novel diversion into an entire fucking industry.

Even the BBC had a 'transfer deadline day' special. I'm sure Sky have been doing this for years but they are the originators of the three-numpties-on-a-couch-talking-about-nowt format. I hear Richard Keys and Andy Gray are about to relaunch their careers from the top of a bit of scaffolding on a 1980's building site. Every time I see Keys bellyaching on the box like some discarded silverback I just think he's lucky that anyone put up with that crap for as long as they did. 

Any road, on the Beeb, Dan Walker was yapping away at the excitement of it all like a bright-eyed collie when, in actual fact, the day was about as thrilling as a bucket of overboiled broccoli. It's a true sign of our times that one of the most significant developments in our media is the unending capacity of sports people to talk about absolutely fuck-all forever.

There must be someone making a packet out of running former pros through the cliche mill. I'm fed up to the back teeth of the phrase 'game-changer'. If only it were accurate. "We're six-nil down, lads" said the game-changer "but let's see how good this Man City team is at... Cluedo!" (Actually I'd love that. Samir Nasri as Miss Scarlett? Has to be.) 

At the end of January 31st - the broadcasting equivalent of a bagpipe being droned for an entire day, what do we have to fill today's bar-room banter with?

That Kim Kallstrom eh? Just what Wenger was looking for. That midfield of his was lacking quality wasn't it, eh? Chelsea have signed a dance-fitness exercise class from France for £12 million. Owt else? Not really.

Konoplayanka - can't be bothered to check the spelling - decided not to join Brendan Rogers' purring preening reds. Draxler stayed in Schalke (which sounds like an announcement regarding the car industry). Cattermole stayed with Sunderland rather than joining Charlie Adam and Glenn Whelan at Stoke in what many were dubbing a Midfield From Hades: more ankle-biting than a mosquito's stag-party.

I suppose the main talking point will surround Fulham, where Berbatov has departed for Monaco. That's got to suit the lazy old genius hasn't it? Tax-free lolling about with the occasional bit of work to do. He's been replaced by a Greek centre-forward called Mitrologou who looks for all the world as if he's spent four weeks being crimped and primped by a Selfridges beautician. He's like a footballing Rylan.

Now whether this bloke, along with the workaday Holtby, can turn around Fulham's season is debatable. What will help is the despatch of Senderos to foreign fields. I honestly don't think I've seen a worse central defender in the Premier League. Unless you include them other lunks that Wenger lumbered on to the pitch a while back - Stepanovs, Luzhny... oh and there's always Titus Bramble - Jesus Navas, how DO these blokes keep getting employed? Why do managers buy them?

I mean if I'd watch a window-cleaner cave his mop and bucket through the veluxes on my next-door neighbours I'd hardly be invited the bloke over to my gaff to squeegie my glass clean.

Any road, Senderos has left the opposite of a gaping hole in the Fulham rearguard and that might just help Meulessen paper over the odd crack.

In the real quality division of British football, the Championship, some desperate clubs have hired in goalscorers who have long since forgotten how to do their job. The greatest sufferer of Heskeyitis is one Danny Graham, and where's he gone? Yep. To the Boro. There are times when I despair. Let's hope that somewhere along the road to Marske the scales fall from his eyes and he remembers how to find the back of the net. The way he's been playing I doubt he'll even find the Riverside Stadium.

So there's sort of quite a lot to talk about, if you really could give a fig that Wilfred Zaha is going to playing for Cardiff for a bit which makes you wonder why the silly sod left Palace cos he'd probably be happier there.

But this transfer window should really be scrapped. It's such a bloody freak-show cum cattle-market nowadays that I've forgotten why it was introduced in the first place. It inflates prices, it makes clubs rush through ridiculous deals, and only those with oodles of disposable income ever benefit. And they're the ones in charge in the first place.

But worst of all it just creates employment for the next wave of recently retired pundits who have stepped down of the production line and monotone muppetry that passes for analysis these days. The only problem with all of it is that with every passing syllable, Robbie Savage becomes more interesting. It's all relative, but the likes of Michael Owen make numpites like Robbie Savage eminently listenable to, in the same way that UKIP make George Osborne appear kind.

The only reason to keep the window open at all is so we can get a through-draught to waft out the stench of all the horseshit we've listened to for the last 24 hours.