Football's transfer window day.

In the world of football it's transfer window day. Whoopie! I'm overjoyed and thrilled. Is there anything more exciting. There are few events that capture the imagination of the football supporter  more worthy of mention. Every team in the Premier League looks briefly at its enormous squad of players, weighs up its options and believes wholeheartedly that the exercise is a constructive one.

Up and down the Premier League - and quite possibly the rest of the League - football fans will be biting their fingernails and hoping against hope that their team will invest multi millions of pounds on the greatest players currently plying their trade at Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid or any team bankrolled by Chinese owners with a deep and vested interest in your team. Then again they look at their bank balances, considerable revenue streams and budgets and find that maybe these players are unnecessary and surplus to requirements.

At the moment Sky Sports TV are rolling out an all day singing and dancing extravaganza. This is the day when managers are seen stylishly pulling away in their Range Rovers from their club's training ground and holding their breath. Transfer window day is unlike any other day in the football calendar, a celebration perhaps of football's obscene wealth and yet by the same token, glamour. Which may or may not be a good thing. Still it does keep football supporters on their edge of their seats.

It is a day that reminds you of a noisy cattle market. There's a constant frenzy of excited haggling, bartering and hard negotiating where every Premier League fan finds themselves privately wishing that their club can finally unearth that glittering jewel in the crown, the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It may be possible that the whole day is completely pointless and once again highlights the sheer greed and  mindless materialism that continues to infect the game.

So here we are on the final day of January and football's sense of globalisation and internationalism is now reaching out into markets previously untapped. The transfer window is the trigger point and catalyst for the whole of Europe and the rest of the world to dip into their pockets and spend as if money were somehow going out of fashion.

Now the whole of Europe, Africa, South America and every point of the world compass will be taking out their cheque books and signing players they hope will not only strengthen the core of their squad but will guarantee the Premier League title. Premier League squads are more like the carousel at airports with players spinning around like suitcases. There is that endless rotation of players employed in every team that almost feels as if the manager can never be sure of his best team.

And this is the way it seems to the outsider. You spend millions and millions of pounds for a set of players, try to find a suitable role for them and then regret your decision because the player has neither settled in the team or is like a fish out of water. After a season or two it becomes abundantly clear that the players who have signed for your team have no intention of playing for you any more. This is because either the family are unhappy or the children have, quite possibly, been mocked at school.

Which is where we came in for Dimitri Payet, now back at Marseille, the club who nurtured and encouraged him. After only a season and half at West Ham, Payet may not be the last player to change his mind when perhaps he should have thought things through. But the fact remains that Payet has now become the archetypal villain of the piece and the club are now in the throes of wiping out his image outside the London Stadium. For West Ham this must feel like some wondrous fairy tale that was too good to be true.

Payet signed a five year contract at West Ham from which the club were hoping for five years of loyalty, emotional commitment and excellent form. Given the substantial amount of money he would be earning at West Ham it seemed the least the player could do was to deliver his best football. But then Payet now tells us that he was unwell which would seem to suggest that either the player was medically unfit or just totally disinterested in English football.

Of course Payet was, and still is, a delightfully talented player, a player of extraordinary gifts with  educated feet and a vast repertoire of goal- scoring free kicks. But when it came to his family's financial security and his personal happiness Payet had to be true to himself. And yet as a life long Hammer I hope Payet will examine his conscience and question his own judgment. Still on reflection West Ham may feel that they have now parted company with a player whose heart was never really in the club.

Way back when, French superstars like Raymond Kopa and Just Fontaine played football because they knew that money may have been regarded as a secondary consideration. Of course money plays a vitally important role in any job but for Kopa and Fontaine it may well be the game itself that brought ultimate job satisfaction rather than the lure of big bucks. Then football was a simple, uncomplicated business where priorities were somehow different and the whole morality of the game bore no resemblance to the present day.

Transfer window is, to the impartial observer, just seems like a licence to print money. Players are herded around the country like livestock and the whole merry go round keeps whirling around at the most dizzying of speeds. Sadly football and loyalty are now somehow totally disconnected with each other and, realistically. may belong to some old family album. The harsh reality is of course that the whole concept of the football transfer market and loyalty to the club, is no longer as relevant as it used to be. In fact it's probably a dated anachronism that means nothing to anybody in particular.

Tom Finney of course is the most obvious example of one player who spent his entire career at Preston without a hint of disenchantment. Finney was a one club man and committed himself to Preston because Preston gave him his chance in football and he felt a deep love and affinity to the them. The Preston plumber was suitably rewarded with an illustrious England career and the undying admiration of everybody within the game.

Finney could have been attracted to Italian football and Seria A. But Finney was trustworthy and reliable, never disappointing anybody. He scored goals for both Preston and England without feeling as if his talents could ever have graced any other stage. Finney was stoutly loyal and the very thought of moving to any big time club would have seemed alien to his nature. He was Preston born and bred and had he been transferred to another club then maybe the Deepdale faithful would have been permanently hurt and never allowed him to come back.

So it's starting orders for the football transfer window and the great footballing stampede. Around the country Premier League managers are gazing through that window and wondering whether it looks a bit dirty and smudged. The feeling is that the window is in dire need of a good wipe and clean. There are a couple of hours left and it could be that some of us would rather turn off our TV sets and go back to the everyday business of life. It may be time to collectively switch off until tomorrow. After all the sun will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar it will come out.