Big deals fail to materialise as window slams shuts

The Premier League title race is pretty much ‘as you were’ following a transfer deadline day in which most of the top eight — even super-wealthy Manchester City refused to pay overinflated prices and saved their money instead for the summer market.

The winter window has always been something of a game of poker but January 31, 2014 may well be remembered as the day when the top clubs gambled on saying ‘stick’, leaving Manchester United — who did spend a club record €45 million on Juan Mata last week — as the only real winners.

Whether the shadow of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules hung over chairmen is difficult to say — perhaps it was just a good old fashioned desire to get value for money — but certainly there seemed a reluctance to gamble in the search of an advantage in the title race.