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.