THE fingertip tooth brush, Eye protectors for chickens, Duster slippers, The Butter Stick. All totally useless (and genuine) inventions which lasted only as long as it took the patent office manager to stop laughing. To this illustrious list I suggest we add the modern day equivalent, equally barmy, impractical and no use whatsoever: the transfer window. Can anyone else remember why this was brought in? Those with better memories than I claim it’s something FIFA dreamed up several years ago to help ‘create a level playing field’. If this was their objective they’d have been better off driving a JCB into Stanley Park as opposed to developing the current system by which players can move between major clubs. Managers and chairmen observing the two windows call to mind a similar activity during classic BBC kids’ programme Play School: “What’s through the window today children?” “Why look, it’s Louis Saha, carrying a treatment table. And there’s Uncle Alex laughing his cockerel off its perch!” “And through the round window it’s...another rare bird, Robinho! He’s turned up at Manchester City, wearing a Chelsea shirt! Silly Billy!” Just what it is about this magical deadline that makes normally sane and sensible men abandon all rhyme and reason and chuck money about like Newcastle season tickets? And why does everyone wait until three minutes before midnight to do all their business when the ‘window’ has been open for two months? Didn’t they notice the draught? Surely it would be better for all concerned if the squads were settled before the season starts, to allow new signings or replacements to bed into their new team and hit the ground running (literally, in the case of Saha) from the very first game? Or are all our clubs so fond of flexing their financial muscles in a childish game of ‘who blinks first’ that this artificial boundary serves merely to emphasise the power hierarchy in the Premier League? Whatever their motives, the transfer window system has palpably failed and should be either limited to the close season, if FIFA really do want to stop big clubs buying titles or staving off relegation by raiding smaller outfits during the season; or preferably just abandoned altogether, thereby allowing us all to indulge in transfer speculation all year round rather than shoehorn it all into two manic days in August and January. Thankfully we can put all this behind us now for four months and get on with the serious stuff of playing twice a week until the next international break in mid-October. These seven games include a couple of crunch league games, a visit to Middle Eastlands, two Champions’ League encounters and an outing for the reserves in the Carling Cup. This spell should test the mettle of the new squad, who haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory so far. The arrival of our friends from Hogwarts on Saturday isn’t quite what we’d have requested following an international break and missing our two star players, and Stevie G’s call for more ‘bottle’ against the Mancs will have struck a chord with the majority of fans who have witnessed these encounters in recent seasons. We can’t throw caution to the winds in these games but surely we can unsettle them with the barnstorming approach with which we’ve opened many a European encounter? Playing a winger or two will be a start, and pushing Alonso further forward would surely carry more threat than seating him firmly behind Mascherano. But more important will be the belief and will to win displayed by all of the side; otherwise the creak of the cursed window opening in January is likely to see one or two more fringe players facing defenestration. | 
