The money'll come out tomorrow...

I can't help it. Every year I try not to get excited about the impending closure of the transfer window, and every year I get caught up in it. This year's not exactly shaping up to have any of the Robinho and Berbatov-laden insanity of summer 2008, but then again, neither did that day.

What we can expect, though, is a huge amount of panic buying. And industrial-strength stalling from the berks at Sky Sports News, who've been preparing for this hallowed day for the last seven months.

Andy Burton will be being interviewed in the studio every 45 minutes or so, saying his sources are saying their sources are saying that someone is getting on a plane to somewhere, but he can't give us any details because he needs to keep it private. Meanwhile, Jim White will almost certainly be trying to convince us that Sunderland signing Peter Crouch will happen, and that it is every bit as important as the giant shock transfer we're all waiting for. Adam Leventhal will try, and fail, to get a nice view down Natalie Sawyer's cleavage.

The BBC live text system will be as dull as ever. Sam Lyon will retweet some tool's lies about Sergio Biscuits being seen travelling along the M60, possibly tongue-in-cheek but you can't be too sure with Sam, he might just be a thicko. Jonathan Stevenson's updates will be pretty reliable, but just five minutes after you've read about them in the next day's papers. God, he's slow.

Owen Hargreaves is looking like being the comedy story of the day, probably being subjected to cotton wo- erm, "fitness tests" at various places, allegedly Manchester City, which is funny in itself. I'd bet cash money on him failing, regardless of what YouTube tells you.

But forget everything else. Tomorrow is about Arsenal. They'll be referred to as a crisis club dozens of times, the words "pivotal", "crucial", "vital" and anything else you can find in the thesaurus will be banded around in reference to the day's importance to Arsene Wenger's time as Arsenal manager, probably by Craig David, who's my tip to be stationed outside the Emirates with that big façade of the Arsenal legends linking arms in the background. You know the one.

Intrepid SSN reporter David Craig gears himself up for another hectic transfer deadline day

And in the end, it'll all be a massive disappointment. Stoke will sign an average Championship player, Arsenal will panic buy someone unproven but with promise (cue ominous music), and Leventhal won't see any boobs. I can't remember a truly interesting transfer window since that aforementioned wonderful day in 2008. At least this one won't feature the saga of whether Barca will make a late bid for Cesc Fabregas.

We all know it'll be rubbish. I've told you what's going to happen already. But you'll still skive off work and be glued to the tv, your phone and/or the internet all day, won't you? Of course you will. And I'll be right there with you

Flatline Deadline

For many football fans, yesterday was the day that those who weren’t at work sat perched on the edge of their sofa, curtains drawn, staring at a Sky Sports News lovely and the average bloke sat next to her, whilst those at work kept a crafty eye on proceedings through a constantly minimizing Internet Explorer window.

Yes, yesterday was transfer deadline day! With millions of fans - watery eyes, heart palpitations and all - were glued to whatever screens were in front of them in the hope of their club pulling off a major signing before the transfer window slammed shut on the fingers of cash-splash happy managers (or, if you’re a Portsmouth fan, in silent prayer that the other half of your squad isn’t sold).

However it was all a bit of an anti-climax. While rumours; from the sensational (Ribery to Liverpool) to the reasonable (David James to Spurs) to the downright ridiculous (Voronin to Arsenal) were in abundance, Leeds’ Jermaine Beckford was spotted at the training grounds of the remaining 91 clubs in the football league (presumably by a best friend’s mam’s uncle’s partner’s dog’s son’s brother’s owner) and Notts County were supposedly throwing cash at retired football luminaries such as; Figo, Nedved and probably Pele, Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore, nothing of any note actually happened.

As much as Sky tried to make the transfer of Danny Collins seem important, everything was, well, a bit rubbish. They darted from club to club speaking to their roving reporters only to be told: ‘There’s sod all happening’ - albeit in a more articulate way - while a smarmy looking bloke sat on a telephone in the studio telling them why sod all was happening before feeding us false hope by saying: ‘but it could… will it… probably not… but there is a chance.’ Did it? No.

What did happen was; Pompey managed to replace the half of the squad they had sold… before quickly selling the other half and Man City signed no-one, presumably because Hughes’ arms are knackered after hurling huge sacks of dosh at clubs, players and probably passers buy in the street all summer.

So, all in all, another wasted afternoon sat in the company Sky Sports or BBC’s text commentary on their website. No change there then. Will we learn in time for January’s deadline? Probably not and with good reason: I’ve heard from a reliable source that Frank Lampard will be signing for Stockport.