THE transfer window has slammed shut, as it always does.

Never shall it be calmly closed despite the lateness of the hour and with a thought that the neighbours might be asleep.

And yet the need for a big crashing slam seems to be getting less and less required as the seasons pass by. Sky Sports is still clinging on to the drama of the day and celebrates the millions of pounds spent on footballers, but those big 11pm lives to see reporters amid a swarm of supporters are almost ready to be indexed in the Museum of Soccerball’s curiosities section alongside Soccer AM.

Who is really staying up to see if there’s big breaking news from Selhurst Park?

There is some late movement, of course, but any element of live TV surprise has normally already been ruined earlier in the day by Fabrizio Romano’s 100 tweets on the same treatment. It’s easy to hate the game and the player here, when it comes to the Italian’s crude domination of the market reporting.

This summer, of course, his feed seemed to be a non-stop conveyor belt of people joining Tottenham Hotspur; we hope you are happy with yourself, Beyonce. Better than what they had, none of the new arrivals in N17 – or N17th as it’s known – were mind-blowing despite the outlay of £400 million.

That’s before salary agreements high enough to make players say, with straight faces, that “it was always Spurs”. We hope you are happy with yourself, Beyonce. Btw Gabby Agbonlahor will soon be in touch to ask if you are available to do a month of hen night gigs at Villa Park once he’s finally clocked how the finance rules work.

At home, fans will decide whether this player is worth that or that player is worth this – forgetting in their role of armchair auditors that the price will only matter to them if their team fails.

How can any of us know what any player is really worth in this deranged market, so set apart from any real world comparator? Savio is worth 220 million chocolate Chomp bars, Enzo Fernandez’s fee is the value of 320 million cans of Tango (Apple) and Richarlison is worth about 20 lattes from Starbucks. Ah, is that last comment about the player or the cost of chain coffees – you decide. You don’t get that with the articles on The Athletic.

And so what of Arsenal’s efforts at shopping? We are in this strange place where the pundits say the Gunners can’t be stopped, while simultaneously pointing out all the deficiencies in attack. Maybe some more forwards should have come in but in April and May, I was praying for just one league title pleeeeasee and I’ll never complain again.

We got what we wanted: no moaning for a while.