August never seems an entirely satisfactory month. The closing of the transfer window and the scramble for last-minute deals always seems to deflect from the matches themselves – although these days, perhaps, it is the other way round – and then just as everything is about to get going for real, just as throats have been cleared and vocal cords are warmed up, everybody dashes off to play a series of internationals that, in the year before the World Cup, contrive to be highly significant while feeling like an unwanted distraction.
The phoney war is over. For four months the transfer window is closed and barring the next two sets of internationals – which at least will settle who is going to the World Cup, making them far harder to begrudge – there is nothing to get in the way of the actual business of trying to win football matches, starting on Saturday lunchtime with a proper heavyweight clash as Liverpool go to Manchester City, the game that last season left Pep Guardiola happier than apparently anything else in his time in England to date, despite it ending in a 1-1 draw.
Related: Football transfer rumours: Chelsea to sign Thomas Müller from Bayern?
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