Here in the U.K, Sky Sports News have been trailing Transfer Deadline day for two weeks. For many viewers, the strained excitement of the presenters trying to display uncontrollable excitement over minor transfer dealings is something of a running joke. The memory of a half frozen reporter standing outside the Brittania Stadium trying to summon some energy as the club announced they had signed Micheal Tonge lives on.

If anything, along with the number of made up texts that litter a variety of websites, transfer deadline day has become something of a swollen, bloated joke of a day. Now of course, the Internet is littered with tales that nearly 40 transfers are awaiting confirmation due to the amount of faxes sent in to the Premier League’s offices before the 6pm GMT deadline. So much for the finality of a timed lock down.

Whilst most Spurs fans are apoplectic with expectation that the club has pulled off the coup of signing Rafael Van der Vaart, most fans have seen little to excite them in the way the media tell us to. Of course, the Spurs fans expectations are heightened by the hope it’s true, so they can see Sylvie Van der Vaart on a regular basis.

What surprises me, with the amount of money floating around the Premiership, is that we have a situation where a fax machine can delay deals being completed. Yet, thinking about it, how else is the paperwork going to be fired around Europe like intercontinental ballistic missiles? Of course they could scan things in and then email the PDF files over the Internet but surely that’s even more time consuming? The fax machine returns to the forefront of technology on deadline day.

What surprises me is the other side of transfer deadline day. For every Robinho moving to A.C. Milan or Asamoah Gyan joining Sunderland, there are ten professionals trying to desperately find a club. The Professional Footballers Association is currently hosting a list of over 300 players currently without a club. Whilst there are plenty of junior or trainee players, there are several familiar names.

For instance, would you be surprised to see that Jay De Merit is on the list or Wilfred Bouma? Perhaps French striker Jeremie Aliadere could do a job for your club and as I type this, the P.F.A. website is stuck on its front page due to the amount of traffic on the site. It seems plenty of managers are trying to fill up some squad places now.

Former Tottenham player Rohan Ricketts wrote an article about how transfer deadline day effects players when it comes around and gave an insight in to just how it makes certain players feel. On reading it, it was interesting how he felt the situation at Tottenham had developed in to a no win situation. Ricketts is building himself a reputation as more than just a footballer and when you read articles like this, it gives you a more honest reflection to what really goes on behind the facade football clubs like to show us.

All in all, the transfer deadline simply fails to deliver because even in this day and age, things can get delayed. Ramping up the hype for a cut off points only works when you actually know who has applied for what. With spurious text messages constantly relayed as fact, such as Ronaldo being seen at Gatwick earlier this afternoon, the hype simply fails due the lack of real evidence until the club actually confirms the deal.

Sky Sports News seems to be having a strange day today as it winds itself up again over the information that certain bookmakers here in the U.K. have suspended betting on Rafa Benitez leaving Liverpool after tonight’s match. Now whilst I’ve been highly critical of Benitez this season, this is another ludicrous situation developing  at Anfield. Sure, the Premiership is gone, they’re out of the F.A. Cup, out of the Carling Cup but still in the Champions League. Whilst I don’t think they’ll win it, they’ve still got a slim chance of adding to their 5 European Cup triumphs.

Apparently, William Hill, amongst other notable British and Irish based based bookmakers have said the following. “We have been informed by a source that the deadline for Benitez to sign his new contract has passed and he will be removed from his post by the weekend. There have been too many calls to us for it to be just a rumour”

Benitez has certainly dragged his feet over the contract offer on the table, the major sticking point was believed to be having total control over transfers. Looking at his record over his time at Liverpool, I think he needs keeping well away from having total control over that part of the clubs business, or else Liverpool well end up with 17 defensive midfielders who run all day. Whilst Liverpool were top of the Premiership, The F.A. Cup and waiting for the Champions League knock out phase to begin, he was in a position of strength. Now, his position of strength has been reduced to hoping against form and praying for another miraculous run to the final to save face.

Yet to remove him now, or certainly allow the rumours of him leaving to destabilise his preparation for tonights match is disgusting. Hicks and Gillette have been down this road before when courting Jurgen Klinsmann a couple of years ago and the club is notably silent at the moment. Is their a campaign to make his position untenable so he walks away? Are the owners so frustrated over the throwing the League challenge away so early in the season and the unsigned contract still on the table that they’ve allowed this story to gather speed?The silence coming from Anfield is deafening.

The added incentive to tonight’s tie is that it could be seen as a job application for both managers to take over Real on a permanent basis, with Juande Ramos only under contract until Real’s final game on May 31st and Benitez has been constantly linked with a return to Bernabeu since leaving for Real Valladolid in the summer of 1995. Every time someone has vacated the Real Madrid hot seat, and that’s been quite a lot over the last 5 or 6 seasons, Benitez’s name has been linked to the job.

To allow him now could completely destabilise Liverpools season with tragic results. They are not too far ahead of Chelsea and Aston Villa, it’s not too far a push to imagine Arsenal hitting a run or Everton for that matter to put pressure on 4th place. Whether Benitez is Liverpool manager next season is open to conjecture, he surely has to stay for the remainder of the season, doesn’t he? Alex Ferguson must be wondering just how much more good news he can get this season.

According to Sky Sports News, Manchester City has made a shock bid for Dimitar Berbatov which has been accepted by Spurs. Incredibly, Tottenham is reported to have made a bid in excess of £30 million. The massive transfer fee makes him the most expensive transfer signing in British history.

Man City manager Mark Hughes says that the transfer has been agreed with Spurs, but personal terms have to be worked out with Berbatov.

The audacious bid is a result of a shock buyout of Man City from an Abu Dhabi group that has paid £200 million. Thaksin Shinawatra has reportedly sold the club to Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development (ADUG). One of the chief aims by ADUG is to ensure that Man City qualifies for the Champions League at the end of the season, so the Berbatov signing would be perfect timing for City.

Despite the bid being accepted by Spurs, there’s still an opportunity for a counterbid to be made by cross-town rivals Manchester United or other clubs. However, it’s doubtful that United would be willing to match or beat Manchester City’s current bid in excess of £30 million.

Thought for the day: If you were an alien that landed on earth and were forced to watch the Sky Sports News program “Through The Night,” would you know that the biggest sporting event in the world waa taking place, the one that happens only once every four years, the summer Olympic games?

The answer is an emphatic no.

I watched Through The Night on Friday night. Not one single mention of the opening ceremony of the games in its 60 minute broadcast. I also watched it on Saturday and didn’t see the games mentioned either.

This is another example of how immature and biased Sky Sports News is.

When Euro 2008 was happening, “Through The Night” often ran with Cristiano Ronaldo transfer gossip as the main story or cricket news and relegated the Euro 2008 headlines to usually the third or fourth story of the idea in its program.

Go back a couple of years to the bung scandal that BBC’s Panorama program uncovered and it took “Through The Night” a couple of days to cover the news and then they buried it deep within the program. But if some player got into a fight or there’s half a rumor of an agent sealing a transfer deal that no one cares about, you can almost guarantee it’ll be the lead story.

The rule that Sky Sports News seems to be running is that if they don’t own the rights to the event, then they’ll ignore that news. On the other hand, if they own the rights, you can be assured that they’ll cover that news ad nauseum and hype it so much that it’ll never live up to its expectations.

Here’s a parody of Sky Sports News done by That Mitchell And Webb Look, a BBC show. This is so true:

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