WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Despite Sky Sports News’ best efforts, the transfer window deadline day was a wet blanket as far as the top six were concerned. Their reporters did their best to exaggerate, build the highest of mountains out of the tiniest of molehills, get excited about absolutely nothing and, short of downright lying, inject some life into a thoroughly boring and uninteresting final day.

The top six managed just ONE signing between them and that was a loan deal when Mateo Kovačić joined Chelsea from Real Madrid.

That means Manchester United who, defensively, were second best to Manchester City last season, didn’t manage to add to their current FIVE international centre-backs.

They also didn’t add a goalscorer which, considering they scored six goals less than Arsenal who finished sixth and 38 less than City, would suggest that the problems may lie at the other end of the pitch.

Only Romelu Lukaku was a regular goalscorer and Mourinho will be hoping that Alexis Sánchez will chip in with a few this season. As to who else he is expecting to provide the goals well who knows?

Paul Pogba may not even be there as is also the case with Anthony Martial. Marcus Rashford is going through that phase whereby he thinks he can run through players and score himself despite team mates being in better positions, so his goals are now few and far between.

Juan Mata and Ander Herrera didn’t really feature enough to score many goals and the same will likely apply this term with the midfield three expected to be Pogba, Matić and Fred.

So, by our reckoning, apart from the two old men who are absolutely hopeless at defending and will, hopefully, be replaced by Shaw and Dalot, it is in the wide positions where United need players.

Juan Mata has been played there and was totally ineffective. Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Alexis Sánchez have also been told to try their luck out wide but are all, basically, strikers and prefer to play more centrally.

So the boat should have been pushed out to get Willian or Ivan Perišić who are both genuine wingers and, as well as scoring plenty of goals, will also provide many assists.

But no, United decided they needed to strengthen the second best defence in the Premier League.

Manchester City agreed a deal with Wolves to sell them Oleksandr Zinchenko but Nuno Espírito Santo couldn’t convince the player that the Black Country is as nice as Manchester.

Arsenal managed to sell Lucas Perez to West Ham while Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp spent the day in bed.

Chelsea finally told Real Madrid where they could find Thibaut Courtois and welcomed Kepa Arrizabalaga to Stamford Bridge in a deal which saw them pay twice as much for a new goalkeeper as they received for the old one.

What’s so unusual about that, you may ask? Well, the new one isn’t as good as the old one and, despite being very aware of this fact, Chelsea still sanctioned the deal, which actually happened yesterday.

Mauricio Pochettino wanted to buy Jack Grealish from Aston Villa. Aston Villa, having suddenly won the lottery, no longer need to sell players. Jack Grealish wanted to go to Tottenham, it’s called ambition. Villa had even gone as far as telling Grealish that he could leave if a decent offer was received.

The decent offer was received and was rejected by the new owners because, at the end of the day, it wasn’t them who told Grealish he could go. In fact, they are now telling him he can’t.

All this leaves an unhappy player whose career could go backwards from this moment on unless he is allowed to leave and THE CLUB keeps it’s promise.

So, of the top six, only Liverpool and Arsenal have made a number of signings and, of the two, only Liverpool will now feel that they can challenge for the title.

The rest saw big spending by Everton, West Ham and Fulham and it will be interesting to see if this has been money well spent.

And finally…..

In an attempt to further alienate Chelsea supporters, Sky Sports also decided to televise Thibaut Courtois’ unveiling by Real Madrid.

In truth, if the Belgian’s introduction to his new fans was of little interest to followers of Chelsea it was of even less interest to anybody else outside of Madrid so why they quite saw the importance of broadcasting it is beyond mere mortals such as ourselves.

The fact of the matter would appear to be that the channel has become so arrogant that it will televise whatever it wants to regardless of the feelings of true football fans.