Big guns hold fire as window slams shut

In a season in which the Premier League title race was meant to be the most widely and hotly contested ever, and in which clubs received record television income, there appears to have been a change of the tide after not a single one of the big six were willing to put their heads above the parapet and make a statement on transfer deadline day.

When you consider the €6.6bn pumped into the game by Sky and BT in 2016, not to mention worldwide television and internet rights and the rise of China as a possible new financial power, there was every reason to think the latest window would surpass the record of €290m set in 2011.

But as the world waited for a marquee signing, a last-minute masterstroke that would hand someone the title advantage, deadline day turned out to be a damp squib and left the race for the championship very much as you were.