Deadline day hysteria, a game at bursting point? No, this is the new normal | David Conn

Aug 31, 2017

The fees being paid now are eye‑watering, the wages are unthinkable, the top agents’ fees – often payable to their bases in tax havens – difficult to accept, but most clubs are in fact living within their outsized means

One way to contemplate the mind-boggling millions Premier League clubs have spent signing footballers in this record-breaking transfer window is to reach for the handy device of the illustrated dictionary. Look up the word inflation now, and it gives you a picture of Kyle Walker. Amid the maelstrom of arrivals and departures as the clubs have repeatedly dipped into their deeper money pots – leaving Paris Saint-Germain’s excesses to one side as a special case – Walker’s fee, £50m, stands as a price barometer.

The right‑back he has replaced at Manchester City, Pablo Zabaleta, was a thoroughbred when they signed him in 2008, aged 23, from Espanyol; already an Argentina international. The fee, for a supremely consistent full‑back who proceeded to play 417 matches for City through their Abu Dhabi‑fuelled reconstruction, was reported to have been £6.45m.

Tags: Business Finances Football Manchester City Premier League Sport Transfer window