No-one keen on Robbie as window quietly shuts

FOOTBALL’S obsession with turning Transfer deadline day into a drama to rival a James Bond thriller came to a grinding halt yesterday as the Premier League seemed to run out of money and Robbie Keane out of options.

Just two years after a record £500 million (€605m) was spent in the August window, the highlight of 24 hours of minute-by-minute coverage on satellite channels and football websites was the £13m (€15.7m) arrival of Nigerian striker Asamoah Gyan at Sunderland — while Keane, persistently linked with a move away from Tottenham Hotspur, stayed put.

There was no action at all from the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United or Arsenal either despite hundreds of speculative stories over the last four weeks linking those clubs with dozens of players.